» 


Ulrich  Middeldorf 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


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http://archive.org/details/maxbeerbohininperOOIync 


MAX  MINIMUS 


MAX  BEERBOHM 
IN  PERSPECTIVE 


BY 

BOHUN  LYNCH 


WITH  A  PREFATORY  LETTER  BY  M.  B. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 
ALFRED  A.   KNOPF    :  MCMXXII 


Printed  in  Great  Briiain 


PREFACE 


Egged  on  by  people  who  know  as  well  as  I  do  that 
such  wine  needs  no  bush  that  I  can  hang,  but  who  were 
good  enough  to  believe  that  a  book  of  this  nature  might 
be  found  excusable,  I  began  my  research  and  made  a 
full  confession  to  Mr.  Beerbohm.  I  suggested  that  he 
might  lend  me  a  page  of  his  corrected  MS.  to  reproduce 
in  facsimile.  (To  show  readers  how  an  author  goes  to 
work  may  not  be  strictly  relevant  to  an  appreciation 
of  that  work's  result,  to  be  sure,  but  it  is  legitimately 
interesting.)  I  urged  that,  probably,  there  were  in  his 
possession  caricatures  as  yet  unpublished  and  un- 
exhibited  which  might  be  published  here  ;  finally — and 
how  well  he  must  have  known  that  this  was  coming — 
I  asked  him  whether  he  would  make  a  caricature  of 
himself,  special  to  the  occasion,  for  a  frontispiece. 

This  was  his  reply  : — 

ViLLiNO  Chiaro,  Rapallo. 

June  18,  1921. 
Dear  Bohun  Lynch, — The  sky  is  very  blue  here  this 
morning,  as  indeed  it  usually  is,  and  your  letter  came  like 
a  bolt  from  it.  After  I  had  read  the  first  2  or  3  lines  I 
instinctively  sat  down,  somewhat  blasted.  I  then  read 
the  whole  letter  manfully.  And  now  I  take  up  my  pen. 
But  I  don't  {it  is  a  sign  of  the  condition  to  which  you've 

vii 


PREFACE 


reduced  me)  know  what  to  do  with  it.  I  don't  quite  know 
what  to  write.  You  are  a  much  younger  man  than  I  am, 
and  I  think  you  might  have  waited  for  my  demise — in- 
stead of  merely  hastening  it.  Had  you  said  you  thought 
of  writing  a  little  hook  about  me,  I  should  have  said  simply 
"  Don't !  "  But  as  you  give  me  to  understand  that  you 
intend  to  write  a  little  hook  about  me  and  have  already  been 
excogitating  it,  what  shall  I  say  ?  I  know,  at  any  rate, 
what  I  shan't  say.    I  shan't  say  "  Do  !  " 

/  shan't  offer  you  the  slightest  assistance — except  of  the 
purely  negative  and  cautionary  kind  that  now  occurs  to 
me.  I  won't  supply  you  with  any  photograph  of  myself 
at  any  age,  nor  with  any  scrap  of  corrected  MS.,  nor  with 
any  caricature  of  myself  for  a  frontispiece  {you  yourself 
have  done  several  brilliant  caricatures  of  me,  and  I  com- 
mend these  to  your  notice),  nor  with  any  of  the  things  you 
seem  to  think  might  be  of  interest.  You  must  forage 
around  for  yourself.  I  won't  even  try  to  prevent  you  from 
using  anything  you  may  find.  I  eschew  all  responsi- 
bility whatsoever.  I  disclaim  the  horrid  privilege  of 
seeing  proof-sheets.  I  won't  read  a  single  word  till  your 
book  is  published.  Even  if  modesty  didn't  prevent  me, 
worldly  wisdom  would.  I  remember  several  books  about 
men  who,  not  yet  dead,  had  blandly  aided  and  abetted  the 
author ;  and  I  remember  what  awful  asses  those  men 
seemed  to  me  thereby  to  have  made  of  themselves.  Two  of 
them  were  rather  great  men.  They  could  afford  to  make 
awful  asses  of  themselves.  I,  who  am  100  iniles  away 
from  being  great,  cannot  afford  such  luxuries.  My  gifts 
are  small.  I've  used  them  very  well  and  discreetly, 
never  straining  them  ;  and  the  result  is  that  I've  made  a 

viii 


PREFACE 

charming  little  reputation.  But  that  reputation  is  a  frail 
plant.  Don't  over -attend  to  it,  gardener  Lynch  !  Don't 
drench  and  deluge  it !  The  contents  of  a  quite  small 
watering-can  will  he  quite  enough.  This  I  take  to  he 
superfluous  counsel.  I  fi?id  much  reassurance  and  com- 
fort in  your  phrase,  "  a  little  book'\  Oh,  keep  it  little  ! 
— in  due  proportion  to  its  theme.  Avoid  such  phrases  as 
"  It  was  at  or  about  this  time  that  the  young  Beerbohm  " 
etc.  My  life  (though  to  me  it  has  been,  and  is,  extremely 
interesting)  is  without  a  single  point  of  general  interest. 
Address  yourself  to  my  writings  and  drawings.  And 
surtout  pas  de  zele,  even  here !  Be  judicial.  Make 
those  reservations  without  which  praise  carries  no  weight. 
Don't,  by  dithyrambs,  hasten  the  reaction  of  critics  against 
me.  Years  ago,  G.  B.  S.,  in  a  light-hearted  moment, 
called  me  "  the  incomparable  ".  Note  that  I  am  not  in- 
comparable. Compare  me.  Compare  me  as  essayist  (for 
instance)  with  other  essayists.  Point  out  how  much  less 
human  I  am  than  Lamb,  how  much  less  intellectual  than 
Hazlitt,  and  what  an  ignoramus  beside  Belloc ;  and  how 
Chesterton's  high  spirits  and  abundance  shame  me ;  how 
unbalanced  G.  S.  Street  must  think  me,  and  how  coarse  too  ; 
and  how  much  lighter  E.  V.  Lucas'  touch  is  than  mine  ; 
and  so  on,  and  so  forth.  Apply  the  comparative  method 
to  me  also  as  caricaturist.  Tend  rather  to  undermf^  me — 
so  that  those  who  don't  care  for  my  work  shall  not  be 
incensed,  and  those  who  do  shall  rally  round  me  .  .  . 
But  I  seem  to  be  becoming  guilty  of  just  what  I  swore  to 
uvoid  :  I'm  offering  '^positive"  advice — and  at  such  a 
length  !  Still,  the  advice  is  good ;  and  the  letter,  tho'  it 
will  bore  you  in  the  reading,  will  save  you  trouble  some  day. 

ix 


PREFACE 


Some  day,  if  your  future  novels  are  as  beautifully-done  as 
your  past  ones  (and  if  our  civilization  persists),  you'll  get  a 
letter  from  a  young  man  announcing  that  he  is  going  to 
write  a  hook  about  you  ;  and  then  you  will  but  have  to  post 
him  this  very  screed,  writing  across  it  in  blue  pencil 
"  Certainly,  but  please  follow  advice  herein  given  "  by 
your  long-winded  friend 

Max  Beerbohm. 

Well,  I  must  be  as  obedient  as  possible.  I  will  forage 
around  for  myself.  I  must  accept  the  responsibility 
all  of  which,  whatsoever,  he  eschews.  I  will  not  send 
proof-sheets  to  Mr.  Beerbohm.  His  rejection  in  writing 
of  my  proposal  in  regard  to  a  page  of  corrected  MS. 
will  remind  readers  of  the  celebrity  whose  stock  reply 
to  requests  from  autograph-hunters  for  his  signature 
was  a  (signed)  refusal  to  supply  it.  But  to  reproduce 
his  letter  would  be,  perhaps,  to  take  a  mean  advantage. 
So,  the  MS.  of  his  actual  work,  however  legitimately 
interesting,  must  be  taken  on  trust.  (I  can  assure  the 
reader  that  all  of  it  is  exquisitely  neat,  legible,  in  bulk 
beautiful,  but  that  all  corrections  are  blotted  out  by 
black  impenetrable  lakes  of  ink,  so  that  no  one  shall 
ever  know  whether  his  second  thoughts  are  really  better 
than  were  his  first.) 

Fortunately  I  do  not  need  to  be  supplied  by  him  with 
photographs.  I  will  make  it  as  little  a  book  as  possible  ; 
maintaining,  however,  my  own  convictions  about  the 
"  due  proportion  to  its  theme."  As  to  Mr.  Beerbohm's 
life,  I  had,  in  my  letter,  already  assured  him  that  his 
views  and  mine  would  not  violently  clash.    I  gave  him 

X 


PREFACE 


the  instance  of  a  mutual  friend,  an  actor,  whose  senti- 
ments and  mine  were  identical  in  this  regard,  who  was 
once  "  interviewed "  for  a  newspaper  whose  repre- 
sentative put  to  him' some  extraordinarily  impertinent 
questions.  This  victim  of  what  the  public  is  supposed 
to  want  had  said  :  "  If  you  wish  to  know  anything 
about  my  work,  what  I've  done  on  the  stage  and  so  on, 
I'll  tell  you  :  but  if  it's  anything  to  do  with  my  private 
life  ...  oh  ! — that  is  it,  is  it  ?  I  see.  Very  well. 
My  mother  ? — she  takes  in  washing.  Some  years  ago 
she  moved  to  Notting  Dale  so  as  to  be  nice  and  handy 
to  the  Scrubs  when  Father  came  out.    My  sisters  .  . 

Actually,  of  course,  Mr.  Beerbohm  is  wrong  in  this 
respect.  There  are  many  experiences  and  contacts  in 
his  life  which  would  be  of  general  interest ;  but  that 
interest  must  for  the  most  part  remain,  and  very  pro- 
perly remain,  in  the  subjunctive  mood. 

As  to  comparisons — I  rebel.  What  Mr.  Shaw  said 
in  two  words,  I  want  to  try  and  say  in  a  great  many. 
And  to  compare  Mr.  Beerbohm' s  work  with  that  of 
dead  writers  and  of  living  would  be  (odiousness  apart) 
extremely  unprofitable.  Of  the  various  items  in  his  last 
book  Mr.  Gosse  wrote  :  "  They  are  winged  things  which 
seem  too  aery  in  their  hovering  flight  to  be  called 
essays,  like  those  of  Addison,  of  Hazlitt,  or  of  Mr. 
Lucas.    They  are  the  humming-birds  of  literature." 

It  will  be  noticed,  moreover,  that  even  Mr.  Beerbohm 
himself,  so  prolific  in  examples  where  other  writers  are 
concerned,  was  forced  to  content  himself  with  a  general 
request  for  comparison  in  respect  of  his  caricatures. 

But  I  will  try  to  make  reservations.  I  will  rise  early 
xi 


PREFACE 


in  the  morning,  after  a  late  night,  and,  before  breakfast, 
allow  my  examination  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's  work  to  be 
coloured  by  morosity  and  petulance. 

"  You  may  call  it  monstrous,"  he  said  of  critics  in  his 
essay  on  Ouida,  "  that  a  good  writer  should  be  at  the 
mercy  of  such  persons,  but  I  doubt  whether  the  good 
writer  is  himself  aggrieved.  He  needs  no  mercy.  And, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  menaces  hurled  by  the  ordinary 
reviewers,  whenever  something  new  or  strange  confronts 
them,  are  very  vain  words  indeed,  and  may  at  any 
moment  be  merged  in  clumsy  compliments." 

And  there — as  he  might  represent  Henry  James  as 
saying — ^you,  so  very  emphatically,  are  ! 

As  to  the  fact  that  I  am  a  much  younger  man — Ah, 
how  our  view  of  Time  alters  as  Time  goes  by  !  In  one 
of  his  first  essays  the  exact  number  of  my  years  was 
branded  by  Mr.  Beerbohm  as  the  "  brink  of  middle 
age."  He  was  quite  wrong  then.  Would  it  be  un- 
generous of  me  to  say  that,  by  implication,  he  is  quite 
right  now  ? 


For  the  sake  of  convenience  I  have  tried  to  describe 
the  caricatures  and  cartoons  as  though  they  were 
different  things  from  the  writings  and  not,  as  shall 
hereinafter  be  explained,  the  same  thing.  Of  course,  a 
certain  amount  of  overlapping  is,  owing  to  this  curious 
fact,  inevitable  ;  but,  formally  speaking,  the  discussion 
will  fall  into  two  parts,  and  the  sheep  be  divided  from 
the — sheep. 

xii 


PREFACE 


So  to  Max  Beerbohm,  for  not  trying  to  prevent  me 
from  using  what  I  have  found,  as  well  as  for  his  "  nega- 
tive and  cautionary  help  "  I  owe  my  warmest  thanks  ; 
which,  especially  in  regard  to  the  illustrations,  are  due 
also  to  Mrs.  Charles  Hunter  and  (alphabetically)  after 
her  to  George  Bealby,  Austin  Earl,  Philip  Guedalla, 
Messrs.  Heinemann,  John  Lane,  William  Nicholson,. 
Richard  Pryce,  Professor  Rothenstein,  Walter  Sickert, 
J.  C.  Squire  (who  approved  of  the  suggestion  that  I 
should  write  an  article  in  the  London  Mercury,  which  is 
the  basis  of  my  survey  here),  G.  S.  Street,  the  Pro- 
prietors of  Vanity  Fair,  Frederick  Watson,  and — I  had 
nearly  added  "  Uncle  Tom  Cobleigh  and  all,"  offering, 
however,  no  disrespect  to  his  companions. 

B.  L. 

London, 
July,  1921. 


xiii 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface  

The  Writings  of  Max  Beerbohm       .       .       .  1 

The  Caricatures  of  Max   lOi 

A  Postscript   Igl 

Bibliography   177 

Index  jgS 


XV 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING  PAGE 

Max  Minimus      ....  Frontdspiece 

A  Self-caricature  by  Max         .        .       .  .10 

Max    Beerbohm.     From    the    Lithograph  by 
William  Eothen stein      .        .        .       .  .16 

George  IV.    A  Caricature  by  Max    ...  26 

Max.  a  Caricature  in  "  Vanity  Fair  "  by  Walter 
Sickert    ........  32 

*'A  Momentary  Vision  that  once  befell  Young 
MiLLAis."    A  Caricature  by  Max    ...  48 

Max  and  Water.  A  Caricature  by  Bohun  Lynch  .  64 

Mr.  Charles  Conder.  A  Caricature  by  Max       .  80 

KivERSiDE  Scene.    A  Caricature  by  Max    .       .  96 

Self-caricatures  by  Max   106 

"  This  is  my  Receipt  for  Max."  A  Caricature  by 
William  Nicholson  112 

"If  the  Age-Limit  is  Raised  to  Forty-Five."  A 
Caricature  by  Max  128 

"  Quis  Custodiet  Ipsum  Custodem  ?  "    A  Carica- 
ture BY  Max  144 

Mr.  R.  B.  Cunninghame  Graham.    Studies  for  a 
Caricature  by  Max  150 

Max  Beerbohm.  A  Caricature  by  Bohun  Lynch  .  164 

Five  Illustrations  for  a  copy  of  "Confessio 

Amantis"  by  R.  le  G  172  176 

M.B.P.  xvii  b 


PART  I 


PART  I 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 
I 

Quite  a  good  subject  for  a  literary  competition,  or 
a  "  Confession  "  Book  would  be  the  discussion  (in  a 
strictly  limited  number  of  words)  of  the  circumstances 
in  which  we  came  to  read  certain  authors.  Everybody 
concerned  in  the  production  of  books  has  been  and  will 
continue  to  be  puzzled  about  it.  Was  it  a  review  or  an 
advertisement  ?  Or  was  it  just  chatter  at  tea-parties  ? 
Or  was  it  the  subconscious  working  of  all  of  these  ? 

In  some  cases  such  a  discussion  would  be  a  severe 
test  of  memory,  in  perhaps  more  it  would  be  a  severer 
test  of  honesty.  What  was  it  that  actually  impelled 
us  to  read  Henry  James  ?  What  finally  drove  in  upon 
us  the  sheer  necessity  of  doing  so  ?  Was  it  the  fear  of 
having  to  say  again  and  over  again  : — "  Well — no — now 
— do  you  know  ? — ^you'll  think  it  perfectly  dreadful  of 
me — it's  an  awful  confession  to  make,  but — there  it  is  ! 
— I've  never  read  The  Turn  of  the  Screw.  I  know  that 
I  must,  and  I  really  will,  and  since  you  say  so,  I'll 
begin  to-night."  And  then  at  last,  perhaps,  you  do  ; 
not  exactly  because  you  want  to,  but  because  you  are 


M.B.P. 


1 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


utterly  tired  of  the  really  arduous  task  of  talking  about 
books  you  have  never  read,  a  task  made  far  more 
arduous  when  one  party  to  the  discussion  happens  to 
be  the  author. 

"  Of  course,  my  dear,"  your  hostess  will  say  to  him, 
but  looking  at  you,  "  of  course,  I  know  what  you  feel 
about  this  last  book,  but — you'll  think  it  very  stupid 
of  me — I  must  say  I  still  like  Dashblank  the  best."  And 
then  you  are  dreadfully  aware  that  she  is  not  only 
looking  at  but  speaking  to  you.    "  Don't  you  agree  ?  " 

Think  !  You  get  no  comfort  from  your  conviction 
that  the  lady  herself  has  read  no  other  book  than 
Dashblank  by  that  author.  You  fear  the  crooked  as 
well  as  the  straight  road.  You  are  afraid,  on  the  one 
hand,  of  almost  inevitable  complications ;  on  the 
other — not  so  much  of  wounding  inevitable  suscepti- 
bilities— but  of  losing  the  dignified  position  in  the  con- 
versation to  which  your  kind  hostess  has  appointed  you. 

Sometimes,  when  you  have  lied,  the  author  himself 
will  look  at  you  with  a  kind  of  precise  determination, 
when  it  is  too  late  to  go  back,  and  you  will  know  that 
he  doesn't  mind  a  bit  whether  you  have  read  his  book 
or  not,  but  that  unless  the  earth  opens  and  swallows 
you,  as  you  hope  it  will,  you  will  be  caught  in  a  trap 
that  he  has  laid  for  you. 

How  did  I  come  to  read  Stevenson  ?  I  think  my 
honour  and  my  memory  are  here  comfortably  parallel. 
When  I  was  a  very  small  boy  I  overheard  the  late  Dr. 
Ridding,  then  Bishop  of  Southwell,  speaking  with 
rasping  contempt  of  a  comparatively  new  story  called 
Treasure  Island.    "  Bah  !  "  he  said  (or  at  any  rate  he 

2 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


uttered  something  of  that  intention),  "  a  boy's  book 
— all  very  well  for  boys." 

Now  Treasure  Island  had  been  given  to  me  some  time 
before  and  I  had  not  yet  read  it.  I  suppose  I  felt  even 
then  that  the  criticism  (the  first  literary  criticism  I 
remember  hearing)  was  irrelevant,  and  it  was  clear  that 
the  late  headmaster  of  Winchester's  dual  implication 
was  unfair.  He  despised  not  only  the  book,  but  boys. 
So,  following  the  course  of  normal  perversity,  I  was 
launched  upon  a  career  of  (no  doubt)  frivolous  reading, 
which  in  Stevenson's  case  has  been  repeated  almost 
year  by  year  ever  since. 

Again,  how  many  people  (though  not  you.  Reader, 
nor  I)  begin  to  read  an  author  because  that  author  is, 
for  the  moment,  the  correct  thing  ?  It  is  like  the  pur- 
chase of  old  furniture  :  a  large  number  of  persons  buy 
it,  not  because  they  especially  like  it,  but  because 
Queen  Anne  walnut-wood — or  whatever  the  particular 
period  may  be— is  fashionable.  Certain  authors  are 
fashionable  too,  and  ^re  read  (or  skipped)  for  their 
extrinsic  merits.  But  that— the  original  impulse- 
hardly  matters  at  all,  provided  that  the  reading  (or  the 
collecting),  which  started  from  so  ignoble  a  source, 
develops  later,  as  in  either  case  it  often  does,  into  a 
reasoned  and  judicious  appreciation. 

It  is,  then,  interesting  or  heartrending,  as  the  case 
may  be,  to  remember  how  we  came  to  read  what  now 
gives  us  so  keen  an  enjoyment ;  but  the  great  thing  is 
that  we  did  make  a  beginning,  and  are  now,  deservedly 
or  not,  reaping  a  harvest  rich  with  abiding  joy. 

And  how  did  we  come  to  read  Max  Beerbohm  ?  In 

3  B  2 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


the  days  when  he  was  not  widely  known,  did  we  read 
his  essays  because  we  had  seen  his  caricatures,  or  did 
our  dehght  in  his  written  wit  send  us  in  wondering 
haste  to  find  its  complement  in  pictorial  satire  ? 

Like  many  others  of  my  generation  I  began  reading 
Mr.  Beerbohm's  work  at  Oxford,  which  (together  with 
"The  Other  Place")  provides  exactly  the  right  setting 
and  atmosphere  for  such  an  initiation.  Undergraduates 
at  Oxford  like  to  read  about  Oxford — at  all  events  they 
did  then — and  we  had  heard  that  Mr.  Beerbohm  had 
made  intimate  references  to  the  place  both  in  the 
Works,  and  in  More,  then  recently  published.  Further, 
he  had  not  at  that  time  taken  his  standing  in  the 
mythology  of  Oxford,  but  was  a  living  memory.  Quite 
young  dons  had  been  his  contemporaries,  and  those 
who  had  known  him  were  seen  by  some  of  us  to  be 
invested  with  a  certain  lustre  and  were  accordingly 
sought  after.  Even  then,  in  the  first  year  or  two  of 
the  twentieth  century,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  excited 
speculation  about  the  personality  of  Max  Beerbohm, 
less,  it  should  be  admitted,  for  his  own  sake,  than  for 
the  curious  fact  that  he  was  a  part — a  quite  definite 
and  assured  part — of  that  period,  that  condition  of 
being,  that  mode  of  literature  and  of  art,  that  attitude 
to  life,  which  we  call  for  short  "  the  'nineties."  The 
eighteen-nineties,  the  late  Victorian  renaissance,  from 
which  we  had  so  recently  emerged,  had  been  immis- 
takably  impressed  by  that  personality  :  though  the 
worship  in  Oxford  of  those  days  dedicated  to  this 
particular  hero  was  not  a  tithe  of  what  it  is  now,  when, 
as  I  am  told,  a  Max  Society  has  been  proposed  and  by 

4 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


the  time  these  words  are  printed  will  probably  have  been 
inaugurated. 

We  who  had  spent  most  of  the  decade  between  1890 
and  1900  at  school  then  found  ourselves  separated  from 
it  by  a  gulf  more  formidable  than  that  which  divides 
us  now.  For  that  gulf  was  fixed  also  between  our  boy- 
hood and  our  manhood;  and,  speaking  for  my  friends 
and  nwself,  we  only  discovered  the  'nineties,  like  un- 
fortunate poets,  after  their  demise.  We  had  been  good 
boys  and  bad  boys,  but  we  had  not  been,  as  it  happened, 
literary  boys  :  so  that  when  at  Oxford  we  made  that 
discovery  we  were  much  more  excited  and  delighted 
than  were  the  editors  of  and  contributors  to  school 
magazines  who  were  already  familiar  with  the  drawings 
for  Salome,  and  for  whom  "  the  avid  poison  of  a  subtle 
kiss  "  was  as  stale  as  were,  for  us,  last  year's  batting 
averages. 

Having  made  our  discovery — those  of  us,  that  is, 
who  abandoned  goodness  or  badness  for  "  literariness," 
we  ravenously  devoured  the  'nineties,  and  our  enjoy- 
ment of  the  new  food  was  audible  by  our  immediate 
neighbours.  But,  at  first,  our  pleasure  in  the  literature 
of  and  the  literature  about  the  previous  decade  was 
rather  furtive.  We  had  been  taught  very  carefully 
and  well  that  excellence  in  games  and  godliness  were 
practically  synonymous,  and  having  in  the  not  distant 
past  been  caned  by  prefects  for  shirking  the  lingering 
torture  of  a  cold  shower-bath  in  winter  we  felt  that 
anything  outside  "  Nature  "  which  was  called  beautiful 
was  probably  unwholesome.  I,  at  any  rate,  experi- 
enced a  slight  sense  of  guilt  as  I  rummaged  amongst 

5 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


the  second-hand  bookshelves.  We  had  heard  that 
books  written  in  the  'nineties  were  "  daring  "  and  we 
scrutinised  them  from  the  "  moral  "  or,  at  all  events, 
the  hygienic  point  of  view — which  is  much  the  same 
whether  you  are  on  the  side  of  or  the  side  against  the 
angels.  And,  despite  our  recent  education  in  Gaza, 
Askalon,  and  Gath  we  were  on  the  qui  vive  for  any 
books  or  pictures  which  would  lead  us  off  the  track 
beaten  from  those  starting-points. 

And  I  suppose  also  that  we  found  with  some  surprise 
and  relief  that  all  our  little  private  and  personal 
rebellions  against  authority  had  their  counterparts  in 
the  minds  of  quite  grown  up  and  clever  people,  and 
that  the  discipline  from  which  we  were  just  free  and 
which  still  irked  us  in  retrospect,  had  likewise  irked, 
though  in  a  larger  sense,  a  considerable  body  of  our 
just-elders. 

Not  every  generation  has  this  privilege  in  quite  so 
emphatic  a  shape  :  for  there  really  was  rather  a  stir 
in  the  'nineties,  though  no  doubt  too  much  fuss  has 
since  been  made  of  it.  Was  it  definitely  an  age  of 
innovations,  or  was  it  merely  an  age  when  hucksters 
cried  fresh  fish  so  loudly  that  they  were  believed  ?  It 
hardly  matters.  The  important  thing  about  the  'nine- 
ties, so  far  as  we  are  presently  concerned,  is  that  Max 
Beerbohm  arose  in  them.  So  his  early  essays  were  very 
refreshing  if  only  because  no  question  of  "  morality  " 
entered  into  them.  They  could  be  enjoyed,  as  literature 
of  the  'nineties,  but  with  a  single  heart,  unoppressed  by 
guilt. 

For  my  own  part  there  were  other  reasons  why  I 

6 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


should  read  Mr.  Beerbohm.  I  had  not  met  him,  but 
the  best  and  oldest  friend  I  had  told  me  that  she  had 
spun  his  tops  for  him  when  he  was  a  very  little  boy, 
and,  later,  gave  me  the  photograph  which  appears  as 
a  frontispiece  to  this  book,  and  which  is  extremely  like 
him  as  he  is  now  over  forty  years  afterwards.  More- 
over, my  curiosity  was  piqued  by  a  young  woman, 
who  had  been  expensively  taught  and  might  be  going 
to  be  a  professional  pianist,  who  had  met  Mr.  Beerbohm 
and  told  me  that  he  was  "  very  eccentric."  In  passing, 
I  may  add  that  she  never  did  become  a  professional 
pianist,  but  that  many  years  later  her  view  of  the 
subject  of  this  essay  remained  unshaken.  Conversation 
had  turned  (or  been  twisted)  in  that  direction,  and 
"  He's  very  eccentric,  is  he  not  ?  "  she  asked  me. 

So  my  reasons  for  reading  Max  Beerbohm' s  books 
were — one  part,  the  glamour  of  the  'nineties  and  one 
part,  personal,  though  second-hand,  knowledge.  And 
having  read  the  little  there  was  then  to  read,  I  turned 
to  the  caricatures,  and  awaited  and  have  since  awaited, 
from  that  day  to  this,  with  an  ever-growing  eagerness, 
fresh  experiences  of  both. 

For  the  caricatures  and  the  writings  are  not  mani- 
festations of  two  arts,  but  of  one.  There  are  a  number 
of  proverbs,  which  may  or  may  not  be  generally  true, 
about  shoe-makers  sticking  to  their  lasts  and  Jacks-of- 
all-trades  being  masters  of  none.  But  these  do  not 
apply  to  Max  Beerbohm  who  has  but  one  trade.  He 
is  a  satirist :  so  that  it  is  less  odd  than  at  first  glance 
it  might  appear  that  he  should  have  succeeded  equally 
well  both  as  author  and  as  artist.    Other  writers  have 


7 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


been  known  to  play  with  pencil  and  with  paint-box  : 
some  of  them  have  become  quite  distinguished  amateurs 
of  the  game.  And  some  painters  have  used  a  pen,  as 
did  Whistler,  with  such  effect  as  to  inspire  Max  Beer- 
bohm  to  write  an  essay  about  his  writing.*  But  in 
each  case  the  alternative  task  has  been  no  more  than 
a  hobby,  or  a  pleasant  change  of  occupation.  It 
seldom  happens  that  the  dual  impulse  is  found  in  one 
man.  The  explanation  in  Mr.  Beerbohm's  case  is 
merely  that  the  impulse  is  not  dual,  but  single.  His 
two  means  lead  him  to  the  same  end.  There  is  hardly 
a  turn  of  thought  in  his  writings  which  does  not  find 
its  counterpart  in  his  caricatures.  To  and  fro  we  may 
go  from  one  to  the  other,  backwards  and  forwards  and 
back  again,  and  we  find  each  time  the  same  wit,  the 
same  sense  of  what  is  ludicrous,  the  same  intelligence 
behind  the  sense. 

It  is  one  of  the  curses  of  modern  criticism  that  so 
much  artistic  work  of  all  denominations  is  admired 
or  derided,  praised  or  condemned,  according  to  and 
inseparably  from  the  date  of  its  production.  Or,  more 
politely,  it  is  an  error  of  convenience.  Real  excellence 
in  art  knows  no  period.  In  speaking  of  outstanding, 
old  and  portentous  art  we  do  not  make  this  mistake. 
We  do  not  say  that  Giotto  was  "  rather  wonderful  for 
the  fourteenth  century,"  though,  in  a  different  dimen- 
sion, we  have  been  heard  to  find  in  the  "  coarseness  " 
of  the  sixteenth  century  an  excuse  for  the  "  coarseness  " 
of  its  poets.  We  might,  with  far  more  reason,  judge 
personal  conduct  by  period.  "  There  are  fashions  in 
*  Whistler's  Writing  {Yet  Agairt). 
8 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


humour,  and  they  are  always  changing,"  Mr.  Beerbohm 
writes  in,  at  the  time  of  writing  this,  his  most  recent 
essay.*  "  Wit,  on  the  other  hand,  being  a  hard  and 
clean-cut  thing,  is  always  as  good  as  new."  And  great 
art  has  been  always  and  always  will  be  great.  The 
'nineties  certainly  brought  forth  much  original  work  : 
that  is  to  say,  men  and  women,  for  reasons  which  it 
would  be  tedious  to  enter  into  at  length,  dared  rather 
extensively  to  be  themselves.  It  was  fashionable  to  be 
daring.  But  that,  in  the  'nineties,  which  immediately 
afterwards  and  even  now  to  some  extent,  was  and  is 
most  remarked,  was  the  accessory  affectation  rather 
than  the  solid  originality.  Though  he  tells  us  in  Be 
it  Cosiness  f  that  he  belonged  to  the  Beardsley  period, 
we  know  now  that  Mr.  Beerbohm  was  talking  nonsense. 
When  he  says,  in  a  parody  of  his  own  manner  { — "  I 
belong  to  the  Beerbohm  period,"  he  is  much  nearer  the 
mark. 

Originality  hand  in  hand  with  affectation  has  been, 
indeed,  characteristic  of  all  periods.  There  is  nothing 
new  .  .  .  but  what  in  usual  language  we  call  original 
things  are  constantly  being  said  or  thought,  only,  in 
the  'nineties,  the  real  excellence  of  the  idea  was  made 
palatable  by  extravagance  of  ornament. 

Of  course,  during  that  decade  there  was,  so  to  put 
it,  much  ornamental  shadow  without  substance.  There 
was,  however,  probably  no  more  affectation  in  art  than 

*  T.  Fenning  Dodworth,  The  London  Mercury,  August,  1921. 
t  First  published  in  The  Pageant,  1896.    Reprinted  in  the  Works 
under  the  title  of  Diminuendo. 

i  Saturday  Review,  Christmas  Supplement,  1896. 

9 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


there  is  now.  In  some  writers  of  the  'nineties,  as  in 
Max  Beerbohm  himself,  the  affectation  was  only  one 
skin  deep.  In  some  there  was  little  else.  Even  his 
lungs  are  affected,"  one  poet  said  of  another  in  those 
days.  Youth's  harmless  little  affectations  of  superi- 
ority, though  they  often  exasperate  people  already 
provoked  by  finding  themselves  out  of  touch  with  the 
rising  generation,  are  just  as  amusing  as  in  elder  people 
is  the  affectation  of  innocence. 

"  In  my  youth,"  writes  Mr.  Beerbohm  in  his  maturity, 
"  the  suburbs  were  rather  looked  down  on — I  never 
quite  knew  why." 

It  was  in  that  youth  that  he  once  travelled  with  some 
friends  by  train  to  Croydon  to  see  a  play  which  was 
being  produced  by  Mr.  Gordon  Craig.  Suddenly,  to 
the  consternation  of  the  good  burgesses  who,  with 
baskets  of  fish  upon  the  rack,  were  returning  from  their 
day's  work  in  the  City,  he  pulled  down  the  blinds. 
Somebody  asked  him  why  he  did  so. 

"  S-sh  !  "  he  said  in  a  loud  whisper.  "  Lest  I  should 
see  the  Crystal  Palace." 

All  the  same,  looking  back,  it  was  a  good  age  and 
people  who  began  to  write  then  are  rather  to  be  envied. 
The  Old  Order  was  still  firmly  maintained,  people  were 
still  fairly  satisfied  with  themselves  and  one  another. 
It  would  have  been  nice  to  have  been  grown-up  then. 
For  perhaps  everything  did  seem  to  be  very  new.  In 
his  book  The  Eighteen-Nineties,  Mr.  Holbrook  Jackson 
joins  the  great  majority  of  critics  in  acclaiming  the 
newness  of  all  things  made  during  that  time.  To  Mr. 
Beerbohm  he  allots  the  "  New  Urbanity."  Reference 

10 


A  Self-caricature. 
By  Max  (C.  1893). 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


to  any  newspaper  or  periodical  of  the  'nineties  and 
especially  to  Punch  (which  I  once  heard  described  as 
the  light  reading  of  the  upper-married  classes),  will 
show  the  same  thing  :  "  new  women,"  new  this,  new 
the  other.  But  further  reference  to  Punch,  and  the 
conversation  of  most  elderly  persons  and  even  young 
ones  who  are  laudatores  temporis  acti,  will  reveal  the 
same  inclination  to-day — to  be  ingenuously  surprised 
at  the  novelty  of  everything  except  the  moon  and,  in 
the  latter  cases,  to  imply  something  detrimental  in 
that  novelty.  No  doubt  Mr.  Beerbohm  was  new,  in 
the  same  degree  (but  less  in  essentials)  that  Aubrey 
Beardsley  was  new.  But  the  best  of  him,  the  bone  of 
him  was  not  "  new."  Not  that  there  is  anything 
extraordinarily  vile  in  mere  novelty,  but  if  it  is  untrue 
to  say  that  all  novelty  is  bad,  we  might  still  assert  with 
some  show  of  reason  that  all  excellence  is  old. 

Mr.  Jackson  admirably  tells  us  that  the  personality 
and  art  of  Max  Beerbohm  was  fine  "  because  it  was  at 
once  normal  and  unique,  sane  but  inconsequent,  sedate 
without  being  serious,  and  mannered  without  empty 
severity  or  formality."  All  of  which  was  true  of  Mr. 
Beerbohm' s  earlier  work,  and  remains  true,  though  a 
reservation  must  now  be  made  about  the  seriousness. 

The  really  distinctive  and  important  fact  about  Mr. 
Beerbohm — and  this  applies  to  his  early  as  to  his  later 
work — is  that  he  is  one  of  the  very  few  (and  now  much 
fewer  than  in  times  past),  who  find  it  more  blessed  to 
give  than  to  receive,  and  who  act  upon  that  unusual 
discovery. 

"  The  riches  of  the  world,"  writes  Professor  Rothen- 
11 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


stein  in  his  Preface  to  Twenty-four  Portraits  (one  of 
which  is  a  beautiful  drawing  of  Max  Beerbohm),  "  the 
riches  of  the  world  do  not  all  lie  in  mines  or  oil-fields, 
nor  yet  in  the  safes  of  banks,  of  companies  and  of 
trade  unions.  Much  of  our  wealth  is  supplied  by  men 
of  vision  who  must  often,  lest  they  be  prevented  from 
giving  their  best,  deposit  their  gold  under  men's  pillows 
in  the  night-time. 

"  The  publication  of  these  drawings  is  intended  as 
an  act  of  homage  to  those  who  give  rather  than  take." 

In  this  age  of  progress  and  of  push  and  of  "  expansion 
of  trade,"  when  we  are  at  last  and  at  large  beginning 
to  understand  how  genuine  a  social  curse  has  been, 
these  last  hundred  years,  not  only  the  greed  of  but  the 
admiration  for  Money,  it  behoves  us,  whose  pleasures 
are  quiet,  to  thank  as  simply  and  directly  as  possible 
that  comparatively  obscure  minority  the  fine  fruit  of 
whose  minds  is  the  cause  of  so  much  of  that  quiet 
pleasure. 


12 


II 


Of  greater  moment  than  the  circumstances  in  which 
we  came  to  read  Max  Beerbohm  are  the  circumstances 
in  which  he  came  to  make  that  pleasure  possible. 

A  good  many  quite  competent  authors  write  because 
they  have  an  inclination  that  way.  They  think  of  a 
good  story,  or  an  amusing  or  instructive  theme  for  an 
essay  and  down  they  sit  and  write  it  all  out,  with 
greater  or  less  pains  and  difficulty  as  the  case  may  be. 
Other  authors,  often  much  less  "  readable  "  than  those 
whom  I  have  described  as  quite  competent,  write 
because  they  must.  This  is  a  point  which,  for  all  the 
ten  thousand  times  it  has  been  indignantly  repeated, 
is  not  understood  by  the  general  public  of  whom, 
reader,  (to  borrow  Mr.  Beerbohm's  pen  *  for  a  moment) 
you  are  no  more  a  member  than  I  am — ^and  which  still 
thinks  that  writing  is  not  real  work  at  all  unless  it  be 
devoted  to  some  practical  or  beneficent  end,  such  as 
text  books  on  oil-engines  or  treatises  about  rheuma- 
tism :  also,  that  writers  need  not  really  have  been 
writers,  but  might  just  as  well  (and  much  more  profit- 
ably) have  been  accountants — in  which  opinion  the 
public  is  often  juster  than  it  knows.  However,  many 
authors  are  quite  contented  with  the  public  on  this 
score,  because  it  gives  them  a  feeling  of  superiorit}^ 


*  The  Humour  of  the  Public  {Yet  Again). 
13 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


It  remains  true,  nevertheless,  that  people  who  really 
have  something  to  say  simply  must  say  it,  and  they  are 
(though  the  word  must  be  used  more  sparingly  than 
heretofore)  artists.  They  write  (or  paint,  or  compose) 
when  the  fit  takes  them  :  that  is,  when  the  need  to  do 
so  comes  from  inside  them.  The  difference  between 
them  and  the  "  quite  competent,"  uninspired  authors 
is  simple,  for  these  are  urged  by  external  forces.  Their 
beginnings  are  virtually  in  this  manner  : — "  By  Jove, 
I've  got  a  bright  idea  !    I'll  be  a  writer  !  " 

To  Mr.  Beerbohm  and  others  of  his  measure  the 
approach  was  somewhat  different.  His  half-brother, 
Sir  Herbert  Tree,  once  asked  him  what  he  was  going  to 
do,*  and  he  told  him — not  probably  in  the  formula 
given  above — a  barrister. 

Ah  .  .  .  The  Bar  .  .  ."  Sir  Herbert  repHed. 
"  You  at  the  Bar  ...  I  should  have  thought  you'd 
better  be  a — a  sort  of  writer,  and  then,  perhaps,"  he 
added,  "  drift  into  Diplomacy." 

Whether  the  much-younger  brother  had  at  that  time 
shown  any  obvious  and  special  talent  I  don't  know,  but 
it  is  true  that  he  was  fairly — not  amazingly — precocious. 
As  a  child  he  had  never  uttered  sublimities,  but  was,  on 
the  contrary,  extremely  interested  in  policemen. 

Here  and  there  he  himself,  designedly  as  well  as 
casually,  gives  us  glimpses  of  his  childhood.  In  the 
Memoir  of  Sir  Herbert  Tree,  which  he  edited,  he  tells 
us  how  his  brother  was  going  to  dine  out  at  the  house 

*  Herbert  Beerbohm  Tree  :  Some  Memories  of  Him  and  of  his  Art 
[By  Lady  Tree  and  others.]    Collected  by  Max  Beerbohm. 

u 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


opposite  on  a  Sunday  night  and  how  he,  a  little  boy, 
watched  that  house  from  his  bedroom  window. 

"  I  was  fascinated,  in  spite  of  myself,  and,  much  as 
I  pitied  Herbert  for  being  so  unlikely  now  to  go  to 
Heaven,  I  was  also  envying  him  not  a  little,  too." 

There  emerges  from  that  incident  just  a  nice  child, 
with  an  orthodox  upbringing. 

At  school,  we  learn  from  Mr.  John  Lane's  Biblio- 
graphy, printed  at  the  end  of  the  Works,  he  wrote  a 
letter  to  the  Editor  of  the  Carthusian,  signed  Diogenes, 
complaining  against  the  dullness  of  that  journal.  But 
it  was  not  until  he  went  up  to  Merton  that  he  began  to 
feel  the  joyous  discomfort  of  a  procreant  mind.  He 
had,  perhaps,  written  one  or  two  little  essays  for  the 
Oxford  Magazine,  and  no  more,  when  he  met  Aubrey 
Beardsley  for  the  first  time.  The  artist,  almost  his 
twin  in  age,  after  an  hour's  acquaintance,  told  him, 
with  a  curious  and  almost  uncanny  certainty,  that  he 
ought  to  write.  Beardsley  then  went  in  some  excite- 
ment to  Henry  Harland  who,  with  him  as  art  editor, 
was  projecting  the  Yellow  Book :  and  explained  to 
him  that  he  had  found  a  contributor — a  new  man,  who 
had  never  written  anything  to  speak  of,  an  under- 
graduate, an  amateur.  He  had  already,  it  appears, 
asked  Max  Beerbohm  to  write  something  for  them. 
Harland  raised  hands  in  horror.  That  was  not  at  all 
what  he  wanted — clever  young  men  who  had  never 
written  anything — Oxford — amateurishness — not  at  all. 
Beardsley's  enthusiasm  was,  however,  quite  undamped, 
and  he  held  his  tongue  until  the  "  written  something  " 
arrived.    That  was  The  Defence  of  Cosmetics,  which 

15 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


appeared  in  April,  1894,  in  the  first  volume  of  the 
Yellow  Book,  and  was  subsequently  reprinted  in  the 
Works,  under  the  title  The  Pervasion  of  Rouge.  At 
about  the  same  time  Mr.  John  Lane,  as  the  publisher 
of  the  Yellow  Book,  urged  Max  Beerbohm  to  go  on 
writing  and  gave  him  just  that  encouragement  of  praise 
which  is  of  such  paramount  consideration  to  a  young 
man.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  that,  but  for  the  influence 
of  Aubrey  Beardsley  and  Mr.  Lane,  Max  Beerbohm 
would  never  have  written,  for  he  certainly  would,  being 
of  that  kind  described  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter 
who  have  got  to  write.  But  who  knows  what  un- 
certainties, what  troubles  and  hesitations  were  avoided 
by  the  perspicacity  of  these  two  men  ? 

It  is  then  twenty-seven  years  since  Max  Beerbohm 
made  his  first  appearance.  During  that  time  he  has 
published,  apart  from  his  caricatures,  four  books  of 
essays,  one  of  parodies,  one  of  stories,  one  long  novel, 
and  one  "  long-short  "  story — eight  volumes  in  all.* 
Apart  from  these  he  has  done  a  good  deal  of  work  for  a 
number  of  periodicals  and  newspapers  which  has  not 
and  never  will  be  collected  in  book-form  :  and  for  twelve 
years,  from  1898-1910,  he  was  the  dramatic  critic  for 
the  Saturday  Review  ;  for  which  journal  he  also  wrote 
numerous  book  reviews  and  miscellaneous  articles. 

"  My  gifts  are  small  .  .  ."  he  says. 

We  may  easily  imagine  the  pious,  and  in  some 
instances  satisfied  astonishment  of  prolific  and  probably 

*  Various  old  stories  and  essays,  together  with  some  of  the  Saturday 
Review  work,  and  some  stories  hitherto  unpublished,  will  be  found  in 
the  Collected  Edition  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's  writings. 

la 


Max  Beerbohm. 


From  the  Lithographed  Drawing  in  the  Liher  Juniormn 
by  William  Rothenstein  (1898). 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


harder- working,  "  competent  "  writers  who  tenderly 
watch  the  yearly  increase  of  the  shelf  which  upholds 
their  own  works,  when  they  realise,  with  the  help  of  a 
two-foot  rule,  that  but  seven  and  a  half  inches  com- 
fortably covers  Mr.  Beerbohm's  entire  "  output." 

"  Writing  comes  to  me  with  great  difficulty,"  he  once 
said  a  good  many  years  ago,  when  I  was  very  young 
and  incredulous  :  and  I  should  still  be  incredulous  if 
almost  (not  quite)  any  other  author  of  accomplishment 
gave  emphasis  to  that  protestation.  That  he  took 
infinite  pains  with  his  work,  writing  and  re-writing, 
that  nothing  was  allowed  by  him  to  pass  from  its 
lodging  in  the  periodical  press  to  its  permanent  home 
in  a  book  without  "  scrutiny  and  titivation  "  (as  he 
said  in  an  introductory  note  to  More)  I  was  respectfully 
aware.  But  that  writing  should  come  with  difficulty 
to  one  who  wished  to  write  and  had  things  to  write 
about  was  rather  depressing  news  to  a  young  man 
whose  first  novel  had  just  been  published.  To  such 
an  one  writing  may  seem  so  easy — so  fatally  easy  : 
and  that  observation  of  Max  Beerbohm  was  salutary. 
It  is  the  author's  job  to  write,  you  may  say ;  and  it 
can't  be  so  very  difficult.  And  there  is,  I  believe,  some 
sort  of  "  School  "  of,  or  movement  in,  writing,  which 
insists  that  so  long  as  you  get  your  meaning  down, 
clear  and  intelligible,  upon  paper  the  actual  language 
does  not  matter  a  rap.  (If  I  am  wrong  in  saying  there 
is  a  definite  school  which  vociferates  this  principle,  I 
do  know  that  it  will  not  lack  for  pupils,  or  for  professors, 
whenever  it  is  founded.) 

Not  long  after  that  conversation,  it  was  plain  to  me 

M.B.P.  17  C 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


that  Mr.  Beerbohm  made  his  own  difficulties  :  and  some 
of  them  will  be  dealt  with  in  detail  as  we  come  to  various 
aspects  of  his  writing.  He  has  set  himself  a  standard 
on  a  very  high  hill,  and  he  is  ever  climbing  up  to  make 
sure  that  there  is  no  higher  hill  to  set  it  on.  And  there 
is  not. 

It  is  true,  also,  that  he  writes — has  wTitten  for  the  past 
two  years — much  more  than  he  used  to.  Perhaps  it  is 
that  the  persistence  of  his  inspiration  is  greater.  It 
may  be  that  his  themes  for  essays  (he  seldom  wrote 
stories  in  his  earlier  days)  refused  to  shape  themselves 
clearly  in  his  mind.  There  is  always  a  chance  that  it 
was  not  the  actual  writing  which  was  difficult  so  much 
as  the  preliminary  thinking.  Who  can  say  ?  Not  the 
author,  probably.  Once  his  work  is  done,  satisfactorily 
to  himself,  a  writer  seldom  troubles  to  remember  the 
very  real  pains  of  its  delivery. 

"  I  do  not  recall,"  he  wrote  at  the  end  of  his  twelve 
years'  work  as  dramatic  critic  to  the  Saturday  Review, 
"  I  do  not  recall  that  I  have  once  sat  down  eager  to 
write,  or  that  I  have  once  written  with  ease  and  delight. 
But  the  cause  of  this  lack  was  not  in  the  nature  of  my 
theme.  It  was  in  myself.  Writing  has  always  been 
up-hill  work  to  me,  mainly  because  I  am  cursed  with  an 
acute  literary  conscience." 

That  denied  page  of  corrected  MS.  would  have  at 
all  events  made  evident  to  the  reader  the  extreme 
care  that  Mr.  Beerbohm  always  gives  to  his  work.  The 
trouble  he  has  been  at  to  cut  and  to  polish  gives  a  pecu- 
liar distinction  and  beauty  to  everything  that  bears  his 
name. 

18 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


In  a  copy  of  that  first  number  of  the  Yellow  Book, 
which  I  have  studied,  the  last  process  of  titivation  is 
palpable  in  alterations  and  insertions  of  commas,  and  in 
erasures.  Incidentally,  he  has  treated  his  essay  in  the 
bound  volume  just  as  though  it  were  a  common  page- 
proof,  to  be  passed  for  reprinting  in  the  Works.  But 
then  he  was  never  one  of  those  who  have  a  superstitious 
veneration  for  books  as  books.  If,"  he  says  in  his 
essay  on  Whistler's  Writing,  "  I  were  reading  a  First 
Folio  Shakespeare  by  my  fireside,  and  if  the  match-box 
were  ever  so  little  beyond  my  reach,  I  vow  I  would 
light  my  cigarette  with  a  spill  made  from  the  margin 
of  whatever  page  I  were  reading."  And,  upon  my 
word,  I  am  not  sure  that  he  wouldn't.  (He  has  been 
known  even  to  titivate  to  the  most  unholy  ends 
another  author's  words,  to  make  additions,  to  provide 
imaginary  portraits  of  the  author  and  numerous  other 
drawings.  Examples  of  the  sort  of  thing  I  mean  will 
be  found  on  those  pages  of  this  book  which  illustrate 
unauthorised  illustrations  to  a  work  of  Mr.  Richard  Le 
Gallienne.) 

Some  of  the  alterations  in  that  old  Yellow  Book  are 
not  so  much  improvements  as  expressions  of  a  moment's 
mood  :  some  show  that  in  two  years  he  had  grown  out 
of  certain  youthfulnesses  :  all  are  small,  save  for  one 
long  passage  which  is  cut  completely  out.    Here  it  is 

But  "  replaced  by  "  And,"  here  "  revival  "  and  there 
"  renaissance  "  oust  "  renascence,"  there  again  "  would 
merit  "  becomes  "  deserves."  Many  "  lovelinesses  " 
are  given  capital  L's,  and  "  Oxford,  1894  "  is  inserted 
at  the  end.    This  is  all  very  trivial,  but  a  rich  profusion 

19  c  2 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


of  such  trivialities  makes  their  weight  nevertheless, 
like  the  traditional  pound  of  feathers. 

It  is  in  the  unchanging  things  that  we  find  our 
greatest  pleasure — the  arrangement  of  an  old  nursery, 
or  of  particular  books  upon  a  particular  shelf  (Poems 
and  Ballads  between  Wuthering  Heights  and  Jehosha- 
phat  Aspin's  Sports  and  Pastimes  :  there  now  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  they  were  put  in  that  order, 
inappropriately  but  for  no  especial  purpose  many 
years  ago)  :  and  though  by  imperceptible  degrees  the 
apple-tree  grows  sturdier,  its  blossom  each  year  remains 
the  same.  If  as  a  young  tree  it  put  forth  tiger-lilies, 
we  should  certainly  say  that  it  was  very  affected  and 
precocious,  and  we  would  hope  that  the  under-gardener 
would  cut  it  down — the  nasty,  unnatural  thing. 
Unfortunately,  however,  such  is  the  peculiarity  of  our 
vision  that  we  are  frequently  prone  to  mistake  any  fine 
but  very  early  blossoming  for,  so  to  put  it,  tiger-lilies  ; 
and  the  under-gardener  gets  to  work  and  sees  what  he 
can  do  about  it.  The  head-gardener,  on  the  other 
hand,  if  he  understands  his  job,  bides  his  time  and  waits 
for  the  next  year  to  see  whether,  after  all,  it  is  real 
apple-blossom  or  not.  He  will  then,  if  he  has  kept  his 
under-strapper  in  hand,  perceive  that  what  had  almost 
tricked  his  sharp  eyes  was  only  a  particularly  fine 
variety  of  orthodox  blossom  ;  and  he  will  be  glad  :  and 
many  years  later,  when,  the  fine  blossom  being  still  as 
fine,  the  tree  has  grown  sturdy  and  mature,  he  will  be 
very  glad  and  rub  his  hands.  "  But  for  me  .  .  ."  he 
will  say. 

So,  though  the  analogy  is  imperfect  and  somewhat 
20 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


laboured,  it  has  been  with  Mr.  Max  Beerbohm  and  the 
critics.  He  began  to  write  when  he  was  very  young, 
and  his  writing  was  so  surprisingly  good  that  the  critics, 
unaccustomed,  as  we  are  now,  to  subscribing  the 
literary  reputations  of  an  hundred  nurseries,  looked 
askance.  Some  jeered,  and  some,  understanding  their 
job,  remembered  that  letters  were  letters,  and  that  the 
age  of  the  writer,  though  quite  interesting,  should  not 
be  used  either  for  palliation  or  impeachment ;  while 
some  took  him  at  the  foot  of  the  letter,  put  on  cap  and 
gown,  and  swished  the  birch.  After  the  publication  of 
The  Defence  of  Cosmetics  in  Volume  I.  of  the  Yellow 
Booh  Mr.  Punch,  for  example,  inconspicuously  printed 

Ars  Cosmetica. 
How  would  the  little  busy  bore 

Improve  on  Nature's  dower. 
And  praise  a  painted  Lais  more 

Than  maidens  in  their  flower  ? 
How  deftly  he  dabs  on  his  grease. 

How  neatly  spreads  his  wax  ; 
And  finds  in  dirty  aids  like  these 

The  charm  that  Nature  lacks. 
In  barber-born,  cosmetic  skill, 

"  Art  "  would  be  busy  too  ; 
And  folly  finds  some  business  still 

For  popinjays  to  do  ! 

In  his  attitude  to  the  critics  appeared  almost  the  only 
trace  of  bitterness  that  Mr.  Beerbohm  ever  showed  in 
those  days— the  only  thorn  the  young  apple-tree  put 
forth.    When  other  artists  tried  to  burlesque  Aubrey 

21 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


Beardsley  (Max  among  them,  though  not  for  pubHca- 
tion)  they  were  often  amusing,  but  their  pens,  dipped 
in  acid,  were  bhmted,  if  only  (but  not  only)  because, 
for  their  very  lives  they  could  not  imitate  his  '  line.' 
The  early  essays  of  Max  Beerbohm  and  the  fulmina- 
tions  and  lampoons  of  his  critics  were  analogous,  so 
much  better  did  he  write  than  they. 

Mr.  Mostyn  T.  Pigott  was  at  least  genuinely  amusing 
about  the  Yellow  Book.  The  following  verses,  a  close 
parody  of  The  Jabberwock,  and  called  The  Second 
Coming  of  Arthur  (A  Certain  Past  Adapted  to  a  Pos- 
sible Future),  originally  appeared,  I  believe,  in  The 
World. 

'Twas  rollog,  and  the  minim  potes 

Did  mime  and  mimble  in  the  cafe  ; 
All  footly  were  the  Philerotes, 

And  Daycadongs  outstrafe. 

Beware  the  Yallerbock,  my  son  ! 

The  aims  that  rile,  the  art  that  racks, 
Bev/are  the  Aub-aub  bird,  and  shun 

The  stumious  Beerbohmax. 

He  took  Excalibur  in  hand  : 

Long  time  the  canxome  foe  he  sought — 
So  rested  he  by  the  Jonbul  tree. 

And  stood  awhile  in  thought. 

Then,  as  veep  Vigo's  marge  he  trod, 

The  Yallerbock,  with  tongue  of  blue, 
Came  piffling  through  the  Headley  Bod, 

And  flippered  as  it  flew. 

22 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


One,  two  !    One,  two  !    And  through  and  through 

Excahbur  went  snicker-snack  ! 
He  took  its  dead  and  bodless  head 

And  went  jucunding  back. 

And  hast  thou  slain  the  Yallerbock  ? 

Come  to  my  arms,  my  squeamish  boy  ! 
Oh,  brighteous  peace  !   PurUeu  !    Purlice  ! 

He  jawbled  in  his  joy. 

'Twas  rollog,  and  the  minim  potes 

Did  mime  and  mimble  in  the  cafe  ; 
All  footly  were  the  Philerotes, 

And  Daycadongs  outstrafe. 

Max  Beerbohm  too  has  been  known  to  make  personal 
fun  of  people,  though  not  always  for  publication.  The 
following  verse  was  written  by  him  some  years  ago 
about  a  well-known  writer  : 

Elegy  on  Any  Lady. 
That  she  adored  me  as  the  most 

Adorable  of  males 
I  think  I  may  securely  boast. 

Dead  women  tell  no  tales. 

In  his  Letter  to  the  Editor,  printed  in  Volume  II.  of 
the  Yellow  Book,  he  answered  the  serious  abuse  poured 
upon  his  essay  in  Volume  I.  : 

It  is  a  pity  that  critics  should  show  so  little  sym- 
pathy with  writers,  and  curious  when  we  consider  that 
most  of  them  tried  to  be  writers  themselves,  once. 
That  last  venomous  comma  is  worth  a  page  of  in- 
vective and  is  entirely  characteristic.    We  have  heard 

23 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


of  a  life  hanging  by  a  thread,  so  why  should  not  "  a 
charming  little  reputation  "  depend  upon  a  comma  ? 

However,  to  return  to  the  critics — they  have  in  one 
respect  all  become  wise  head-gardeners  now,  and  have 
recognised  the  high  truth  that  whilst  much  blossom 
predicates  fruit,  it  is  for  its  own  beautiful  (but  materi- 
ally useless)  sake  worthy  of  the  warmest  admiration. 
We,  who  never  forget  the  prime  importance  of  being 
earnest,  look  about  us  now  and  again  for  sheer  refresh- 
ment, for  something  to  read  upon  which  we  can  abso- 
lutely rely  not  to  bother  us  with  piety  or  pity,  with 
serious  issues,  with  the  true  reflection  of  our  own 
sombre  habit  of  mind,  and  we  think  of  The  Ghost 
Stories  of  an  Antiquary  or  The  W recker  and  other  books 
which  can  ordinarily  be  relied  upon  for  amusement,  and 
we  reject  them  (sometimes)  because  we  require  that 
which,  besides  not  being  useful,  is  positively  and 
especially  ornamental :  and  we  happily  call  to  mind 
one  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's  cartoons  in  which  he  represents 
the  Shade  of  Stevenson  being  shown  by  Mr.  Gosse  the 
modern  novelists  standing  upon  their  upturned  tubs, 
and  the  Shade  of  Stevenson  says  to  his  guide,  "  You 
have  shown  me  the  propagandists  and  the  pamphleteers 
and  the  grinders  of  axes  and  the  rollers  of  logs  (or  words 
of  that  meaning),  now  will  you  show  me  some  of  the 
writers  ?  " 

That  was  a  very  valuable  piece  of  criticism,  widely 
if  not  universally  deserved.  And  in  writing  stories 
for  those  stories'  sakes,  essays  to  amuse  and  not  to 
edify,  in  never  preaching,  Mr.  Beerbohm  has  practised 
what  he — implicitly  laid  down  as  a  golden  rule. 

24 


Ill 


Up  to  a  certain  point  in  his  career — a  point  almost 
impossible  to  fix — Max  Beerbohm  did  depend  for  his 
effects  upon  the  ultimate  refinements  of  the  writer's 
art  :  and  what  in  his  work  looks  so  engaging,  so  delight- 
ful under  the  magnifying  glass  is  seen  to  much  less 
advantage  by  the  naked,  normal  vision.  After  that 
point,  which  is  like  one  of  those  elusive  spots  that  dance 
away,  when  we  are  liverish,  from  the  corners  of  our 
eyes,  but  which,  for  convenience's  sake,  I  will  put  at 
about  nine  years  ago,  his  attitude  began,  as  we  shall 
see,  to  shift.  For  about  two-thirds  of  its  life  the  apple- 
tree  gave  only  blossom  :  then  it  began  to  bear  fruit ; 
with  the  queer  result  that  the  gardener-critics,  who  had, 
as  I  have  said,  learned  to  appreciate  the  blossom  for  its 
own  sake,  became  or  at  least  are  now  becoming  just  a 
little  disappointed  at  the  appearance  of  the  apples. 
They  had  been  accustomed  to  the  blossom,  they  could 
hardly  recognise  the  fruit,  and  would  not  at  all  but  for 
the  fortunate  and  delectable  fact  that  this  apple-tree 
bears  both  fruit  and  flower  at  one  and  the  same  time. 
The  apples  are  rosy  and  luscious,  thin-skinned,  juicy, 
perfectly  formed — but  we  do  need  the  blossom  as  well. 
The  way  Mr.  Beerbohm  has  said  it  has  generally 
improved  very  notably  upon  what  he  has  said. 

"  For  my  own  part,"  he  says  in  his  essay  on  Ouida, 
"  I  am  a  dilettante,  a  petit-maitre.    I  love  best  in 

25 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


literature  delicate  and  elaborate  ingenuities  of  form 
and  style." 

It  is  this  very  delicacy,  both  in  the  manner  and 
matter  of  his  own  writings,  which  has  distinguished 
him.  His  aim  is  clearly  to  amuse  himself  and  us — in 
that  order.  He  has  always  written  in  the  first  person  : 
more  than  once  he  has  made  his  characters  speak  of 
him  by  name  :  he  has  made  his  appearance  as  a 
character  in  his  own  stories  not  as  a  merely  general 
and  impersonal  first  person,  but  as  the  specific  and 
identical  Max  :  he  has  given  his  views  upon  things  in 
general  with  a  happy  and  conscious  affectation  of 
vanity  which  led  reviewers  of  the  past  to  talk  of  his 
"  delicate  impertinences,"  which,  having  a  regard  for 
the  meaning  of  words,  they  were  not.  The  description 
which  would  have  fitted  better  is  "  sheer,  delicious, 
damned  cheek." 

"  To  give  an  accurate  and  exhaustive  account  of 
that  period,"  he  writes  of  the  year  1880,  "  would  need 
a  far  less  brilliant  pen  than  mine  .  .  .  and  I  look  to 
Professor  Gardiner  and  to  the  Bishop  of  Oxford." 

Those  of  us  who  once  were  made  to  slumber  with 
our  elbows  upon  Dr.  Stubbs'  History  will  cordially  bear 
him  out. 

Here  Punch  stepped  in  again,  with  better  heart  this 
time,  and  published  an  extract  "  From  the  Queer  and 
Yellow  Book "  purporting  to  be  written  by  Max 
Mereboom.  This  was  a  brief  sketch  of  the  history  of 
1894.    It  ends  : 

"  Perhaps  in  my  study  I  have  fallen  so  deeply 
beneath  the  spell  of  the  age,  that  I  have  tended  to 

26 


George  IV. 
A  Caricature  by  Max  (1894), 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAXBEERBOHM 


underrate  its  unimportance.  .  .  .  But  to  give  an 
accurate  account  of  the  period  would  need  a  far  less 
brilliant  pen  than  mine  ;  and  I  look  to  Jerome  K. 
Jerome  and  to  Mr.  Clement  Scott." 

If  there  is  every  obvious  indication  that  he  was 
always  sure  of  himself,  there  is  no  excuse  for  taking 
the  obvious  too  literally.  Max  Beerbohm  as  a  young 
writer  probably  had  to  stand  up  against  rebuffs  like 
other  young  writers,  though  somehow  it  is  not  easy  to 
imagine  it.  He  seems,  however,  to  have  been  singularly 
happy  in  having  made  a  career  and  a  name  for  himself 
on  his  own  terms.  To  do  well  what  you  want  to  do, 
and  to  avoid  being  forced  to  do  anything  else  testifies 
not  only  to  ability,  but  to  character.  In  a  circle  the 
magnitude  of  which  is  no  doubt  much,  though  uncon- 
sciously, exaggerated  b}^  most  professional  writers, 
he  had  been  successful  from  the  uttermost  beffinnina'. 
For  a  wider  circle  (this  applies  to  his  writings  rather 
than  to  his  caricatures)  and  the  success  which  corre- 
sponds to  it,  he  had  to  wait  a  long  time,  almost  indeed 
until  the  publication  of  And  Even  Now. 

In  his  maturity  he  has  shown  that  his  personal  way 
of  writing  was  not  merely  youthful  "  cheek,"  but  a 
manner  of  expression  that  was  for  him  inevitable. 
"  My  gifts  are  small  .  .  ."  Perhaps,  so  far  as  his 
writing  goes,  they  are,  relatively,  small.  He  has  not 
the  all-embracing  love  of  human  nature,  the  ecstas}^, 
the  gusto  of  the  greatest  writers.  But  he  is  a 
remarkably  astute  critic  of  himself  when  he  says  that 
he  has  used  his  gifts  "  very  well  and  discreetly,  never 
straining  them."    He  WTites  with  a  fine,  steel  pen,  not 

27 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


a  big,  soft,  spluttering  quill :  and  he  knows  perfectly- 
well  what  that  fine  pen  cannot  do.  Whether  he  yet 
knows  all  that  it  can  do  is  uncertain.    I  certainly  don't. 

The  more  I  think  of  it  the  wiser  seems  his  estimate 
of  the  use  to  which  he  has  put  his  gifts.  Never  but 
once  to  any  serious  degree  has  he  tried  them  beyond 
their  powers.  Of  course,  he  is  less  human  than  Lamb, 
for  his  vision  is  narrow.  This  he  knows  perfectly  well 
and  acts  accordingly. 

"  He  is  the  spirit  of  urbanity  ;  he  is  town,"  writes 
Mr.  Holbrook  Jackson  in  All  Manner  of  Folk.  "  He  is 
civilization  conserving  itself  and  laughing  at  itself  .  .  . 
His  laughter  is  always  Meredith's  '  laughter  of  the 
mind  '  .  .  .  He  is  an  urbane  controversialist  discussing 
life  apropos  of  himself.  This  egotism  delights  us 
because  Max  is  delightful.  He  himself  would  not  deny 
the  charge  of  poseur,  but  his  pose  is  as  natural  as 
anything  really  civilized  can  be  natural.  Civilization 
is  the  art  of  the  human  race  :  Max  Beerbohm  is  a  detail 
of  that  art  .  .  .  He  is  the  finishing  touch,  the  orna- 
ment, .  .  .  He  is,  in  short,  a  dandy.  You  would  gather 
that  from  his  essays  ;  from  the  careful  and  inimitable 
elegance  of  his  prose,  and  from  the  deliberate  way  it  is 
jewelled  with  exotic  words.  You  would  deduce  a  dandy 
from  such  essays,  but  not  a  D'Orsay,  although  Max  is 
also  an  amateur  in  portraiture.  D'Orsay  abandoned 
himself  to  personal  display  ;  his  gorgeous  clothes  were 
flamboyant  weeds.  Max  is  never  abandoned,  and  you 
would  never  deduce  such  a  dandy  from  his  essays. 
What  you  would  deduce  would  be  a  person  more 
dignified,  less  theatrical,  but  none  the  less  proud  of 

28 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


himself ;  and  the  quiet  eccentricity  of  his  clothes  would 
serve  as  a  suitable  background  for  the  sly  brilliance  of 
his  wit.  For  the  dandyism  of  Max  is  intrinsic  ;  it  is  a 
state  of  being  rather  than  an  assumption  :  it  is  psycho- 
logic, expressing  itself  in  wit  rather  than  clothes  ;  and 
wit  is  the  dandyism  of  the  mind." 

I  have  quoted  this  passage  because  in  it  Mr.  Jackson 
has  so  adequately  and  befittingly  estimated  the  Max 
who  was  fathomable  from — say — the  first  three  books. 
But  that  is  not  the  Max  who  comes  to  light  from  the 
work  in  its  entirety.  And  that  is  not  merely  to  say  that 
he  has  grown  mature,  which,  in  the  course  of  nature,  he 
has  :  or  become  mellowed,  which,  though  that  process 
is  sometimes  avoidable  by  Nature,  is  also  true  of  him  : 
but  the  examination  of  his  whole  work  at  the  present 
time  reveals  a  Max  who  is  not  only  different  now,  but 
who  (after  adding  two  and  two,  very  diffidently,  to- 
gether) must  always  have  been  different.  Max  Beer- 
bohm,  previous  to  that  unascertainable  point  in  his 
career,  masked  himself,  not  in  craftiness,  but  in  mis- 
giving. He  was  probably  afraid  to  let  himself  go. 
Now,  though  careful  still,  he  is  less  afraid.  His  latest 
work  occasionally  shows  the  faults  of  too  great  a 
generosity  in  this  sense,  but — one  thing  with  another — 
it  is  infinitely  better  work,  because  he  has  given  to  it 
more  of  himself. 


29 


IV 


The  outstanding  features  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's  literary 
work  are  the  permanence  of  his  inspiration,  his  style, 
and  a  certain  daintiness  of  invention.  His  sense  of 
humour  can  hardly  be  separated  from  his  style  :  the  two 
must  be  regarded  as  inextricable.  Some  men  write 
amusingly  of  common  things  ;  some  write  amusingly 
of  amusing  things  :  some  write  of  amusing  things 
unamusingly — that  is  to  say,  in  the  last  predicament, 
though  the  author  may  succeed  in  making  you  laugh 
at  the  humour  of  his  subject,  it  is  the  subject  and  not 
the  author  which  is  the  immediate — and  only — cause 
of  your  giggling.  Mr.  Beerbohm  has  written — though 
not  often — of  subjects  which  would  be  generally 
amusing,  and  he  has  drawn  a  great  deal  of  latent  fun 
out  of  the  most  common  things  :  but  the  fun,  which 
from  first  to  last  has  never  upon  any  occasion  been  of 
the  bucolic  or  uproarious  kind,  has  been  so  inter- 
mingled with  his  style  of  writing  that  each  almost 
invariably  includes  the  other. 

Deliberately  to  sit  down  and  try  to  sift  separate 
sentences  of  a  particular  author  for  nuggets  seems,  on 
the  face  of  it,  an  excruciatingly  funny  procedure  :  but 
the  closer  we  look — the  stronger  our  magnifying  glass — 
the  more  we  shall  find.  The  biggest  nuggets  will, 
paradoxically,  be  caught  by  the  finest  sieve. 

In  one  of  his  earliest  essays,  reprinted  in  The  W orJcs, 
30 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


upon  Dandies  and  Dandies,  he  tells  us  that  Brummell 
left  Oriel  for  a  commission  in  the  Tenth  Hussars. 
"  Crack  though  the  regiment  was  .  .  .  young  Mr. 
Brummell  could  not  bear  to  see  all  his  brother-officers 
in  clothes  exactly  like  his  own."  The  separation  of 
the  epithet  from  the  noun  it  usually  goes  with  arm  in 
arm  is  typical  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's  humour.  Anybody 
could  and  generally  would  say  "  though  it  was  a  crack 
regiment."  Wit  in  style  is  often  but  the  quick  snatch- 
ing at  unlikely  straws,  and  Mr.  Beerbohm  has  often 
bid  fair  to  make  us  split  our  sides  by  splitting  hairs. 
There  was  much  in  his  early  work  which,  though  it 
provoked,  and  does  still  provoke,  pleasure,  can  safely 
be  put  down  to  the  perversity  of  youth.  He  invented 
words  ;  he  wrote  "  innowise  "  and  "  inverideed,"  he 
exhorted  us  "  Perpend  !  "  But  Max  Beerbohm  remains 
Max  Beerbohm  still.  His  strongly  individual  sense  of 
the  unfitness  of  things,  his  "  mischievous  and  spritely 
wit,"  as  it  obviously  must  have  been  called  on  many 
occasions,  was  exemplified  in  one  of  his  more  recent 
essays.  Servants,  where  he  writes  of  the  pond  by  Jack 
Straw's  Castle  "  at  all  seasons  so  much  barked  around 
by  excitable  dogs."  In  that  sentence  lies  the  chief 
secret  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's  style — the  supreme  cultivation 
of  splendid  silliness.  Other  instances  of  the  same  sort 
of  thing  tumble  over  one  another  out  of  memory. 
Again  to  quote  from  that  Letter  to  the  Editor  of  the 
Yellow  Book,  when  he  complains  of  his  treatment  at 
the  hands  of  the  reviewers  :  "  If  I  had  only  signed  myself, 
D.  Cadent  or  Parrar  Docks  ...  all  the  pressmen 
would  have  said  that  I  had  given  them  a  very  delicate 

31 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


bit  of  satire.  But  I  did  not,  and  hinc,  as  they  them- 
selves love  to  say,  illce  lacrimce.^^  That  is  all — just  the 
cleavage  of  that  tag — but  there  is  no  one  else  who 
would  have  thought  of  it.  It  is  needless  to  expatiate 
further  upon  the  subject,  save  to  point  out  how  brimful 
of  meaning,  how  allusive  that  little  passage  is. 

This  drew  forth  a  counter-retort  from  Punch,  called, 
"  A  Phalse  Note  on  George  the  Fourth."  "  Nay,"  it 
begins,  "  but  it  is  useless  to  protest.  Much  bosh  and 
bauble-tit  and  pop-limbo  has  been  talked  about  George 
the  Phorth  ...  I  like  to  pliancy  the  watchful  evil 
phaces  of  my  Criticks  as  they  read  this  article.  Phair 
men,  but  infelix,  they  will  lavish  their  anger  in  epi- 
gramme.  Not  that  I  care  a  little  tittle  .  .  .  But  ! 
But  let  them  not  outgribe  too  soon,  but  rather  dance 
and  be  glad,  and  trip  the  cocka whoop.  For  !  For 
.  .  .  they  will  read  with  tears  and  desiderium  unless  I 
...  in  jolliness  and  glad  indulgence  whisper  to  them — 

This  is  a  Goak  !  " 

It  was,  having  regard  to  some  of  the  tricks  of  Mr. 
Beerbohm's  style  at  that  time,  rather  a  good  goak. 

Then  the  amusing  abuse  of  qualification  is  seen  in 
the  diverse  services  to  which  he  puts  the  word  "  rather." 
"  The  labour  I  set  myself,"  he  says  in  his  "  History  " 
of  the  year  1880,  "  is  rather  Herculean."  "  I  am  quite 
unable  to  cope  with  burglars  " — he  is  complaining  in 
an  essay  on  Punch  that,  after  Keene's  pictures  of  bur- 
glars in  knee-breeches  and  masks,  he  cannot  persuade 
himself  that  a  burglar  is  really  but  an  ordinary  indi- 
vidual in  trousers — "  so  they  come  rather  often."  "  The 

32 


Max. 

A  Caricature  in  Vanity  Fair  by  Walter  Sickert  (1897). 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEE RB OHM 


ancient  Egyptians  were  great  at  scientific  dodges  .  .  . 
Sand  buried  the  memory  of  those  dodges  for  a  rather 
long  time." 

One  of  the  most  telUng  quahties  in  a  good  style,  a 
quality  specially  remarkable  in  Stevenson's,  is  that  by 
which  the  reader  is  given  a  little  happy  mild  surprise 
by  the  correct,  but  unusual,  use  of  ordinary  words. 
The  Mashers  who  "  were  often  admirable  upon  the 
steps  of  clubs  "  provide  a  case  in  point. 

So  much  for  what  Mr.  Beerbohm  himself  might 
accuse  Mr.  Frank  Harris  of  calling  style-humour,  to 
which  it  will  be  necessary  to  return.  Another  salient 
characteristic,  I  have  said,  is  a  kind  of  daintiness  which 
is  wedded  to  the  style,  but  which  can  be  separated  from 
it  because  it  is  almost  always  seen  in  the  author's 
chosen  subjects.  And  of  these,  his  first  love,  to  which 
as  all  good  lovers  should,  he  returns  again  and  again 
(thus  illustrating  the  third  characteristic),  is  costume 
— clothes  themselves  and  anecdotes  about  clothes. 

In  Dandies  and  Dandies  he  says  : 

For  some  years  I  had  felt  convinced  that  in  a  perfect 
dandy  this  affinity  must  reach  a  point  when  the  costume 
itself,  planned  with  the  finest  sensibihty,  would  change  with 
the  emotional  changes  of  its  wearer,  automatically  .  .  . 

One  day,  he  tells  us,  he  went  into  a  club  of  which  a 
member  was  Lord  X.,  who  had  been  plunging  up  to 
the  hilt  on  the  day's  running. 

His  lordship  was  there,  fingering  feverishly  the  sinuous 
riband  of  the  tape-machine.  I  sat  at  a  httle  distance, 
watching  him.  Two  results  straggled  forth  within  an  hour, 
and,  at  the  second  of  these  I  saw  with  wonder  Lord  X.'s 

M.B.P.  33  D 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


linen  actually  flush  for  a  moment  and  then  turn  deadly  pale. 
I  looked  again  and  saw  that  his  boots  had  lost  their  lustre. 
Drawing  nearer  I  found  that  grey  hairs  had  begun  to  show 
themselves  in  his  raven  coat.  It  was  very  painful  and  yet, 
to  me,  very  gratifying.  In  the  cloak-room,  when  I  went  for 
my  own  hat  and  cane,  there  was  the  hat  with  the  broad 
brim  and  (lo  !)  over  its  iron-blue  surface  little  furrows  had 
been  ploughed  by  Despair. 

Fifteen  years  or  so  later  we  find  him  changing,  in  the 
Duke  of  Dorset's  shirt,  two  white  pearls,  respectively, 
to  black  and  pink,  because  of  his  sudden  love  for 
Zuleika  Dohson.  His  fidelity  to  clothes  is  remarkable. 
Besides  the  essay  set  apart  for  that  subject  there  are 
constant  references  elsewhere — in  King  George  the 
Fourth,  Poor  Romeo  ! — where  we  find  an  antiquarian 
inquisitiveness  into  the  history  of  a  forgotten  dandy, 
in  Madame  Tussaud's,  as  well  as  in  the  stories,  Zuleika 
Dohson,  The  Happy  Hypocrite,  and  Enoch  Soames  (the 
first  of  the  Seven  Men),  and  of  course  and  especially  in 
the  caricatures  of  all  periods. 

The  daintiness  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's  invention  is  best 
seen  in  The  Happy  Hypocrite  :  a  fairy  tale  for  tired  men, 
"  The  word  '  classic  '  inevitably  suggests  itself  "  wrote 
one  reviewer,  when  this  story — Number  One  of  "  The 
Bodley  Booklets  " — was  first  published  in  1896  :  and 
the  passing  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  (which  seems  like 
a  patent  fact  stated  in  terms  of  gross  exaggeration)  has 
shown  that  even  a  much-profaned  word  may  make  a 
very  sound  suggestion. 

The  story  is  now  perhaps  one  of  the  most  widely 
known  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's  works,  and  has  within  the 
last  few  years  been  reissued,  expensively  and  with 

34 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


illustrations.  It  is  a  really  good  story  of  the  days  of 
the  Regency,  with  an  excellent  plot,  very  "  slickly  " 
and  neatly  worked  out.  But  apart  from  that  there  are 
accessories,  such  as  copious  footnotes  giving  quotations 
from  imaginary  authorities  of  the  period.  These  are 
separately  enjoyable;  ornaments  which  do  not  draw 
away  too  much  attention  from  a  clearly-marked 
outline. 

The  hero  of  this  elegant  romance  is  Lord  George  Hell, 
a  dreadfully  naughty  man,  who  at  Carlton  House 
"  often  sat  up  until  long  after  bedtime,"  the  mention 
of  whose  very  name  caused  riotous  children  to  "  behave," 
who  "  seldom  sat  down  to  the  fashionable  game  of 
Limbo  with  less  than  four,  and  sometimes  with  as  many 
as  seven,  aces  up  his  sleeve."  When  the  simple  little 
dancer,  Jenny  Mere,  refuses  him,  he  thinks  for  a 
moment  of  drowning  himself. 

There  was  no  one  in  the  garden  to  prevent  liim,  and  in  the 
morning  they  would  find  him  floating  there,  one  of  the 
noblest  of  love's  victims.  The  garden  would  be  closed  in 
the  evening.  There  would  be  no  performance  in  the  little 
theatre.  It  might  be  that  Jenny  Mere  would  mourn  him. 
"  Life  is  a  prison,  without  bars,"  he  murmured,  as  he 
walked  away. 

As  elsewhere  so  here  the  unnecessary  but  usual  word 
is  omitted.  We  are  not  directly  told  that  Lord  George 
thought  better  of  his  rash  inspiration  ;  and  the  ellipsis 
is  very  pleasing. 

At  Garble's,  "  that  nightly  resort  of  titled  rips  and 
roysterers,"  Lord  George  would  "  amble  leisurely,  clad 
in  Georgian  costume,  which  was  not  then,  of  course, 

35  D  2 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


fancy  dress,  as  it  is  now."  While  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Httle  book  the  author  tells  us  :  "I  hold  that 
Candour  is  good,  only  when  it  reveals  good  actions  or 
good  sentiments  and,  when  it  reveals  evil,  itself  is  evil, 
even  also." 

Of  fairy  stories  there  were  two  written  at  about 
this  time  which  call,  gently,  for  mention.  One  of  them, 
Yai  and  the  Moon,  appeared  in  The  Pageant  for 
1897.  This  little  story  has,  besides  the  inevitable  sense 
of  fun,  real  dignity  and  beauty.  In  a  measure,  it  even 
foreshadows  the  pathos  which  underlies  some  of  the 
work  done  more  than  twenty  years  later — a  little 
Japanese  girl  runs  away  from  her  precise  and  sophisti- 
cated betrothed  to  the  arms  of  her  lover,  the  Moon. 
For  one  perfect  night  she  glides  with  him  across  the 
sky,  but  with  him — sinks  into  the  sea.  And  in  the 
morning  the  sun  finds  her,  and  believes  that  she  has 
been  drowned  in  coming  out  to  await  his  rising. 

The  Story  of  the  Small  Boy  and  the  Barley  Sugar 
appeared  in  The  Parade :  an  Illustrated  Gift-Book  for 
Boys  and  Girls,  also  in  1897.  It  has  two  black  and 
white  illustrations  by  the  author  which  are  just  recog- 
nisably  his  and  are  strictly  suitable. 

The  fairy  who  sells  the  stick  of  barley  sugar  to  the 
small  boy  blows  upon  it,  so  that  every  time  he  takes  a 
bite  he  may  have  a  wish.  So  in  the  first  place  he 
wishes  his  little  sweetheart  out  of  school,  where  she 
has  been  kept  standing  after  hours  with  the  dunce's 
cap  on  her  head.  And  she  ? — she  crams  all  the  barley 
sugar  into  her  mouth  at  once.  "  And,  Jill  !  "  the  small 
^oy  says  piteously,  "  you  never  wished  !  "    "Oh  yes, 


THE  WRITINGS  OFMAXBEERBOHM 


I  did,"  she  retorts.  "  I  wished  that  you  hadn't  eaten 
that  first  bit." 

This  story  begins  : 

Little  reader,  unroll  your  map  of  England. 

Look  over  its  coloured  counties  and  find  Rutland. 

You  shall  not  read  this  story  till  you  have  found  Rut- 
land ;  for  it  was  there,  and  in  the  village  of 
Dauble,  that  these  things  happened. 

You  need  not  look  for  Dauble ;  it  is  too  small  to  be 
marked. 

And  it  ends : 

Little  reader,  roll  up  your  map  of  England. 

But  first  look  once  more  at  Rutland,  that  you  may 

remember  where  it  is. 
Perhaps  you  have  often  laughed  at  Rutland,  because  it 

is  the  tiniest  of  all  the  counties,  and  is  painted  pink. 
Now  see  how  neatly  and  well  they  have  painted  it, 

never  going  over  the  edges,  as  you  would  have 

done. 

And  know,  also,  that  though  it  looks  so  small,  it  is 
really  more  than  three  times  as  big  as  your  nursery, 
and  that  things  can  happen  there. 

It  is  very  foolish  to  laugh  at  Rutland. 

It  is  not  right  to  say  that  this  sort  of  thing  was  "  all 
very  well  for  the  'nineties,"  or  "  wonderful  for  a  young 
man  of  twenty-four."  The  method  of  expression  may, 
so  to  speak,  bear  a  date  ;  but  the  virtue  of  the  essential 
wit  is  "  proceeding." 


37 


V 


Mr.  Beerbohm's  fastidiousness  of  style,  his  epicurisme 
(which,  somehow,  really  does  look  as  though  it  had  a 
finer  shade  of  meaning  when  written  in  French),  can  be 
well  illustrated  by  isolated  sentences,  which,  from  time 
to  time  and  from  the  whole  range  of  his  work,  return  to 
the  mind,  and  each  of  which  gives  us  its  peculiar  little 
glow  of  pleasure. 

Of  Queen  Caroline. — "  Fate  wrote  her  a  most 
tremendous  tragedy,  and  she  played  it  in  tights." 

Of  George  IV. — "  We  know  that  he  was  fond  of 
quoting  those  incomparable  poets,  Homer." 

Of  jokes  in  the  usual  comic  paper. — "  Whether  such 
jests  require,  or  are  in  any  way  strengthened  by  a 
picture  of  a  decolletee  girl  sitting  in  the  shadow  of  a 
standard  lamp,  with  a  bald  man  bending  over  the  back 
of  her  chair,  is  a  question  on  which  I  have  already  made 
up  my  mind." 

Of  an  inexpensive  fan. — "  The  sticks  are  of  white 
bone,  clipped  together  with  a  semicircular  ring  that  is 
not  silver." 

Of  Mr.  Shaw. — "  His  sterling  affectations "  and 
"  frivolous  convictions,"  and  "  If  his  judgments  are 
scatter-brained,  he  has,  at  any  rate,  brains  to  scatter." 

Of  the  dressing  "  of  shop  windows. — "  Why  should 
the  sea  give  up  its  dead  to  fishmongers  who  harrow  us 
with  the  corpses  ?  " 

38 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


Of  foreigners  of  genius. — "  .  .  .  Infantile  wide-eyed 
Slavs  .  .  .  greatly  blighted  Scandinavians  ..." 

Of  the  approach  to  Oxford  from  the  railway  station. — 
"A  bit  of  Manchester  through  which  Apollo  had  once 
passed." 

"  Where  were  the  black  cypresses  of  which  I  had 
heard  so  much  ?  And  where  the  blue  sky  for  them  to  be 
black  against  ?  " 

"  He  was  the  backbone  of  the  nation,  but  ought 
backbones  to  be  exposed  ?  " 

"  A  long  straight  avenue  of  elms  that  were  almost 
blatantly  immemorial." 

"  His  very  age  was  moderate :  a  putative  thirty-six,  not 
more.    ('  Not  less,'  I  would  have  said  in  those  days.)  " 

"  Head  or  tail  was  just  what  I  hadn't  made  of  that 
slim  green  volume." 

"  A  soft  black  hat  of  clerical  kind  but  of  Bohemian 
intention." 

"  With  all  deference  to  photographers  and  to  such 
artists  as  hopefully  vie  with  them  on  their  own 
ground  ..." 

"  He  had  a  thin  vague  beard — or  rather,  he  had  a 
chin  on  which  a  large  number  of  hairs  weakly  curled  and 
clustered  to  cover  its  retreat." 

"  His  costume  was  a  model  of  rich  and  sombre 
moderation,  drawing,  not  calling,  attention  to  itself." 

There  are,  too,  hoaxes  played  upon  the  reader,  such 
as  the  description  of  Prangley  Valley  (More),  a  delightful 
and  undiscovered  place  quite  close  to  London,  of  which 
no  one  has  ever  heard,  and  which  the  author  apologises 
for  giving  away  and  helping  to  make  popular. 

39 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 

Curiously  enough,  in  And  Even  Now,  there  is  a  much 
less  colourable  fraud.  This  was  a  memoir  of  a  (seemingly 
Carpathian)  genius  called  Luntic  Kolniyatsch.  And 
when  we  find  Mr.  Beerbohm  at  the  end  of  the  essay 
crowing  over  the  public  because  he  can  read  the  master's 
works  in  the  original  Gibrisch,  I  begin  to  wonder  a  little 
at  the  people  who  were,  I  know,  hoodwinked  by  it,  on 
its  first  appearance  in  some  paper. 

Judging  by  other  people's  opinions  frequently 
expressed,  it  seems  that  More  is  the  best  beloved  of 
Max  Beerbohm' s  books.  In  it  as  well  as  in  The  Works 
the  author  is  deliberately  and  consciously  self-satisfied 
with  what  he  might  then  have  called  the  cock-certainty 
of  youth.  Where  The  Works  had  provoked.  More 
exasperated  the  more  pompous  of  his  elders.  Indeed, 
there  are  people  living  (it  is  doubtful  if  the  world  could 
get  on  without  them)  whose  only  epithet  for  his  work 
would  be  "  affected."  They  talk  of  "  wasted  powers  " 
and  a  keen  brain  put  to  no  serious  purpose.  Such 
people  will  find  their  attitude  explained  for  them  in  the 
essay  on  Going  Back  to  School. 

Not  that  I  had  any  special  reason  for  hating  school. 
Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  my  readers,  I  was  not  unpopular 
there.  I  was  a  modest,  good  humoured  boy.  It  is  Oxford 
that  has  made  me  insufferable.  .  .  .  Undergraduates  owe 
their  happiness  chiefly  to  the  consciousness  that  they  are 
no  longer  at  school.  The  nonsense  which  was  knocked  out 
of  them  at  school  is  all  put  gently  back  at  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge. 

Very  earnest  and  glum-minded  folk,  to  whom  the 
quiet,  and  indeed  harmless,  amusement  of  their  fellow- 

40 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


men  makes  no  appeal,  might  find  it  in  their  eager-hearts 
to  condone  that.  But  for  the  nonsense  that,  gently  put 
back  in  1890,  remained  in  1920  (and  still  remains),  they 
can  find  no  forgiveness.  Max  Beerbohm  has  not  tried 
heavily  to  make  the  world  better  :  he  has  succeeded  in 
making  a  small  part  of  it  happier.  For  his  hand  is 
always  light ;  in  writing  he  has  a  soft,  stroking  touch, 
as  sure  and  inevitable  as,  in  drawing,  his  own  "  line." 

Yet  that  passage  quoted  above  together  with  another 
which  will  be  quoted  soon  is  an  excellent  corrective  to 
the  largely  sentimental  pretence  which  leads  men  to  talk 
of  their  school-days  as  the  happiest  time  of  their  lives. 

As  I  hovered,  in  grey  knickerbockers,  on  a  cold  and 
muddy  field,  round  the  outskirts  of  a  crowd  that  was  tearing 
itself  limb  from  limb  for  the  sake  of  a  leathern  bladder,  I 
would  often  wish  for  a  nice,  warm  room  and  a  good  game  of 
hunt-the-slipper.  And,  when  we  sallied  forth,  after  dark, 
in  the  frost,  to  the  swimming  bath,  my  heart  would  steal 
back  to  the  fireside  in  Writing  School  and  the  plot  of  Miss 
Braddon's  latest  novel. 

Very  soft  and  effeminate,  or  babyish,  is  it  not  ?  But 
— how  honest  a  record  of  a  small  boy's  inmost  medita- 
tions !  There  are  boys  from  whose  composition  the 
instinct  for  violent  games  has  been  ruthlessly  omitted. 
Let  us  willingly  grant  that,  for  them  as  for  the  rest, 
much  compulsory  exercise  and  thrashing  is,  for  the 
development  of  their  little  bodies  and  their  little 
characters,  essentially  necessary.  But  do  not  let  us 
pretend  that  they  all  like  it. 

You — he  addresses  a  small  boy  going  back  to  school — 
will  have  torn  yourself  from  your  bed,  at  the  sound  of  a 
harsh  bell,  have  washed,  quickly,  in  very  cold  water,  have 

41 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 

scurried  o£E  to  Chapel,  gone  to  first  school  and  been  sent 
down  several  places  in  your  form,  tried  to  master  your  next 
construe,  in  the  interval  of  snatching  a  tepid  breakfast,  been 
kicked  by  a  bigger  boy,  and  had  a  mint  of  horrible 
experiences,  long  before  I,  your  elder  by  a  few  years,  have 
awakened,  very  gradually,  to  the  tap  of  knuckles  on  the 
panel  of  my  bedroom  door.  I  shall  make  a  leisurely  toilet. 
I  shall  descend  to  a  warm  breakfast,  .  .  .  and  glance  at 
that  morning  paper  which  appeals  most  surely  to  my  sense 
of  humour.  And  when  I  have  eaten  well  of  all  the  dishes 
on  the  table,  I  shall  light  a  cigarette. 

In  January,  1895,  Max  Beerbohm  was  "  interviewed  " 
for  the  Sketch  and  gave  his  further  views  on  the  subject 
of  school. 

"  I  agree  with  that  cosy  writer,  Mr.  James  Payn,"  he 
said,  "  who  has  often  pointed  out  that  boys  are  not  a 
nice  race.  They  are  bullies  or  cowards,  according  to 
their  size." 

"  What  are  your  plans  now  ?  "  the  interviewer  asks 
later  on.    "  Are  you  going  in  for  literature  wholly  ?  " 

"  No  ;  I  intend  to  draw  as  well — always  caricatures." 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  he  has  been  faithful  to 
his  early  intentions. 

At  the  end  of  the  same  interview,  he  says,  apropos  of 
his  essay  on  George  IV. 

"  To  treat  history  as  a  means  of  showing  one's  own 
cleverness  may  be  rather  rough  on  history,  but  it  has 
been  done  by  the  best  historians,  from  Herodotus  to 
Froude  and  myself  ...  at  this  moment  I  am  writing 
a  treatise  upon  The  Brothers  of  Great  Men.'' 

"  You  are  a  brother  of  Mr.  Beerbohm  Tree,  I 
believe  ?  "  asks  the  interviewer. 

42 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


"  Yes  ;  he  is  coming  into  the  series." 

The  essay  about  An  Infamous  Brigade  doubly  illus- 
trates the  author's  manner  at  the  end  of  the  'nineties. 
He  had  seen  a  fire  in  the  distance  and  had  driven 
towards  it. 

Persons  in  absurd  helmets  ran  about  pouring  cascades  of 
cold  water  on  the  flames.  These,  my  cabman  told  me,  were 
firemen.  I  jumped  out  and,  catching  one  of  them  by  the 
arm,  bade  him  sharply  desist  from  his  vandalism.  I  told 
him  that  I  had  driven  miles  to  see  this  fire,  that  great 
crowds  of  Londoners,  poor  people  with  few  joys,  were  there 
to  see  it  also,  and  I  asked  him  who  was  he  that  he  should 
dare  to  disappoint  us.  Without  answering  my  arguments, 
he  warned  me  that  I  must  not  interfere  with  him  "  in  the 
discharge  of  his  duty."  The  silly  crowd  would  not  uphold 
me,  and  I  fell  back,  surreptitiously  slitting  his  water-hose 
with  a  pen-knife. 

That,  though  delightful  and  amusing,  is  the  sort  of 
thing  only  a  very  young  man  thinks  worth  saying.  As 
Max  Beerbohm  has  grown  older  he  has  learned  to 
prefer  nonsense  that  is  more  nonsensical.  However, 
it  is  unlikely  that  there  is  any  one  at  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge now  who  will  not  recognise  in  that  affectation 
of  ignorance — .  .  my  cabman  told  me  ..."  a 
counterpart  of  some  prevalent  whim.  Indeed,  that  sort 
of  thing  is  by  no  means  confined  to  undergraduates. 
The  question  Who  is  Connie  Gilchrist  ?  "  has  become 
the  model  for  much  judicial  humour  of  the  present  day. 

But  on  the  opposite  page  comes  a  genuine  triumph  of 
restraint  which  might  have  been  expected  of  a  much 
maturer  writer.  He  is  speaking  of  the  magnificent  fires 
they  have  in  Chicago  : 

43 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


And,  indeed,  it  must  be  splendid  to  see  those  twenty- 
three  story  buildings  come  crashing  down  in  less  time  than 
was  required  to  build  them  up. 

How  many  people  who  had  thought  of  saying  that 
would  not  have  pointed  to  the  joke  by  saying  "  even  in 
less  time  .  .  .  ?  " 

In  More  there  is  one  essay  which  defies  the  snipper 
of  short  quotations,  but  which  provides  instances  of 
almost  all  those  elusive  gestures  under  present  and 
laborious  scrutiny.  It  is  The  Case  of  Prometheus — who, 
according  to  Mr.  Beerbohm,  is  still  vinctus  upon  the 
summit  of  Mount  Caucasus.  His  authority  is  a 
Mr.  Richard  Mitchell  (a  most  convincing  name),  a 
reliable  but  prosaic  traveller  who  read  a  paper  about  his 
strange  discovery  before  the  Royal  Geographical  Society. 
He  had  not  succeeded  in  reaching  the  summit  and 
rescuing  Prometheus  ;  but  Mr.  Beerbohm,  at  the  time 
of  writing,  was  preparing  for  his  own  departure  on  that 
merciful  errand.  He  tells  us  that  he  was  going  to  shoot 
the  bird  of  Jupiter  and  hail  the  captive  with  words  of 
good  cheer — Xaipc  'Ia7rcTiovi8>7 !  He  had  also  ordered  for 
him  a  tweed  suit  and  a  dressing  case  whose  fittings  were 
marked  n. 

Mr.  Beerbohm  is  rather  generally  considered  as  a 
writer  of  entire  originality.  But  that  we  should  only 
say  having  due  regard  to  the  relativity  of  all  language. 
Let  us,  for  once,  be  quite  literal  and  content  ourselves 
so  far  as  he  is  concerned  with  "  remarkable  originality," 
and,  having  found  that  qualification,  in  what  direction 
do  we  turn  for  the  residue  which  is  to  be  imputed  to 
"  influence  "  ?    In  The  Works,  in  More,  and  rather 

44 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


particularly  in  the  essay  An  Infamous  Brigade,  there  is 
a  hint — perhaps  rather  a  broad  hint — of  de  Quincey, 
both  in  the  matter  and  the  style.  But  this  suggestion 
I  throw  out  with  the  more  diffidence  because  so  many 
shots  of  that  kind  are,  nowadays,  made  in  the  dark,  and 
because  I  know  of  at  least  one  writer  accused  by  critics 
of  having  learned  valuable  lessons  from  a  master  no  one 
word  of  whose  books  he  had  ever  read.  That  can  be 
countered  by  the  further  accusation  that  the  writer  has 
found  his  "  influence  "  at  second  or  third  hand,  that  he 
has,  unconsciously  of  course,  imitated  C,  who  derived 
from  B.  who  in  turn  sat,  not  idle,  at  the  feet  of  A.  But 
for  himself  the  reader  can  compare  de  Quincey' s  account 
of  Coleridge  interrupting  his  tea  to  go  and  see  a  fire  with 
the  (much  more  amusing)  narrative  of  Max  Beerbohm. 
And  sometimes  you  fee],  so  punctilious  was  it,  and 
so  odd,  that  his  early  style  was  influenced  by  the 
language  of  heraldry. 


45 


VI 


Ten  years  elapsed  between  the  appearance  of  More 
and  the  next  collection  of  essays,  Yet  Again.  Those  ten 
years  were,  in  a  manner  of  speaking,  the  most  barren  in 
Mr.  Beerbohm's  life.  It  is  true  that  he  "  worked 
harder  "  during  that  than  at  any  other  time  ;  but  it  was 
work  that  had  got  to  be  done,  week  by  week,  as  we 
know,  in  the  Saturday  Review :  and  as  we  know  also 
the  best  work  of  a  writer  is  done,  not  for  the  Saturday 
Review  but  for  himself.  This  is  not  meant  in  disparage- 
ment either  of  that  journal,  or  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's 
contributions  to  it,  all  of  which  were  well  worth  reading, 
most  of  which  are  worth  hunting  up  and  reading  again. 
But  there  is  a  line  firmly  ruled  between  literature  and 
breadandbutterature.  A  man  may  say  to  himself  (and 
I  am  sure  Mr.  Beerbohm  did) :  "  These  people  are,  very 
kindly,  employing  me.  I  must  give  them  of  my  best." 
But  no  real  artist  ever  gave  of  his  best  because,  with 
whatever  nobility  of  impulse,  he  felt  he  must.  It  may 
happen — it  did  sometimes  happen  in  the  instance  under 
discussion — that  the  best  is  given,  but  that  is  neither 
here  nor  there,  and  a  lively  conscience  may  play  the 
very  devil  with  a  good  writer. 

Though  there  are  many  delightful  things  in  Yet 
Again,  the  book  as  a  whole  does  show,  I  think,  here  and 
there  a  certain  flatness,  which  is  probably  due  to  mere 
fatigue.  I  have  never  heard  any  one  else  say  a  word 
in  depreciation  of  the  book,  and  I  am  not  saying  this 

46 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEE RB OHM 


just  to  satisfy  Mr.  Beerbohm's  demand  for  critical 
reservations.  But  to  me  there  has  always  seemed  to 
be  a  far  greater  proportion  of  writing  which  lacks 
spontaneity  in  this  book  than  in  any  other  that  bears 
his  name.  Indeed,  when  I  think  of  the  others,  I  would 
cut  out  the  qualification,  and  declare  that  in  Yet  Again 
there  is  even  a  measure  of  dullness.  The  novel, 
Zuleika  Dobson,  about  which  complaints  are  fairly 
common,  also  belongs,  roughly  speaking,  to  this  period, 
though  it  was  published  two  years  later. 

Another  reason  why  Yet  Again  falls  below  Mr. 
Beerbohm's  usual  level  of  excellence  is  that  it  marks  a 
point  of  transition  from  the  brilliant  boyish  nonsense 
of  his  early  days  to  the  more  brilliant  but  mature 
nonsense,  and  much  more  than  nonsense,  of  his  later 
work.  All  transition  periods,  as  we  know  to  our  signal 
cost,  are  fraught  with  infelicities.  They  are  of  the 
"  awkward  age." 

The  early  essays  impressed  themselves  on  one's 
memory  not  only  because  they  were  read  at  an  "  im- 
pressionable "  period :  after  a  like  interval  the  later 
essays  will,  I  venture  to  believe,  be  found  to  have  done 
so  too.  I  return  to  them  again  and  again  now,  and  not 
only  for  the  purposes  of  this  book.  I  re-read  one  of 
those  essays  for  one  of  those  purposes,  and  then  find 
that  I  must  go  on  and  re-read  another  for  no  purpose 
at  all  save  that  for  which  it  was  written.  Out  of  the 
twenty-one  essays  in  Yet  Again  there  are  few  that  affect 
me  like  that  and  some  of  them  are  a  little  heavy  :  but 
it  is  very  difficult  to  fix  precisely  the  grounds  of  my 
di  scont  entment . 


47 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


So  much  of  your  final  estimate  of  a  book  (that  is, 
always,  if  you  are  one  of  those  who  feel  capable  of  a 
final  estimate  of  anything,  in  this  life)  depends  upon 
your  mood  when  you  first  read  it.  And  I  seem  to 
remember  that  my  first  reading  of  Yet  Again  was 
clouded  by  depression  that  cried  out  miserably  to  be 
dispersed.  I  was  in  the  country,  and  all  impatient  from 
the  time  of  reading  the  book's  announcement  until  it 
arrived.  The  same  post  brought  me  the  gift  of  a  new 
Kipling.  I  ought  to  have  read  that  first.  Has  the  fit 
of  depression  in  the  autumn  of  1909  permanently 
biassed  my  appreciation  of  the  book  ?  I  do  feel,  quite 
strongly,  that  it  is  the  least  delightful  of  Mr.  Beer- 
bohm's  works  ;  and  yet,  when  it  comes  to  the  point,  I 
can't  put  in  my  thumb  except  to  pull  out  plums  of  the 
exemplary  species. 

For  there  are  in  the  book  inspired  suggestions,  as  for 
instance,  where  Max  Beerbohm  puts  it  that  King 
Edward  (then  reigning)  should  pay  a  state  visit  to 
Switzerland.  Who  would  receive  him  ?  The  President 
of  the  Swiss  Republic.  "  You  didn't  expect  that,"  he 
says.  No  more  you  did.  You  never  thought  of 
Switzerland  as  a  republic  at  all,  much  less  as  having  a 
president.    There  would  be  a  banquet : 

Whereat  His  Majesty  will  have  the  President's  wife  on 
his  right  hand,  and  will  make  a  brief  but  graceful  speech  in 
the  Swiss  language  (English,  French,  German,  and  Italian 
consecutively)  referring  to  the  glorious  and  never-to-be- 
forgotten  name  of  William  Tell  (embarrassed  silence)  and 
to  the  vast  numbers  of  his  subjects  who  annually  visit 
Switzerland  (loud  and  prolonged  cheers).  Next  morning, 
let  there  be  a  review  of  twenty  thousand  waiters  from  all 


48 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


parts  of  the  country,  all  the  head-waiters  receiving  a  modest 
grade  of  the  Victorian  Order.  Later  in  the  day,  let  the 
King  visit  the  National  Gallery — a  hall  filled  with  picture- 
postcards  of  the  most  picturesque  spots  in  Switzerland ; 
and  thence  let  him  be  conducted  to  the  principal  factory  of 
cuckoo-clocks,  and  after  some  of  the  clocks  have  been  made 
to  strike,  be  heard  remarking  to  the  President,  with  a  hearty 
laugh,  that  the  sound  is  like  that  of  the  cuckoo. 

That  is  characteristic  and  pure  Max,  richly  allusive. 

Not  so  the  Pathetic  Imposture  of  the  leader-writers 
who  would  not  say  "  Lord  Rosebery  has  made  a  para- 
dox," but 

whether  intentionally  or  otherwise, 

we  leave  our  readers  to  decide, 
or,  with  seeming  conviction, 
or,  doubtless  giving  rein  to  the 
playful  humour  which  is  charac- 
teristic of  him, 

r we  venture  to  assert, 
have  little 


Lord  Rosebery 


has^ 


'  expressed  a  senti- 
ment, 

or,  taken  on  him- 
self to  enun- 
ciate a  theory, 

or,  made  himself 
responsible  for 
a  dictum, 


\  which, 


or,  we 

hesitation  in  de- 
claring, 
or,  we  may  be  par- 
doned for  thinking, 
or,  we  may  say  with- 
out fear  of  contra- 
diction, 


.    nearly  akm  to,  )  ^,  i    •    i  „ 

IS  i         .         p  1  p      r  the  paradoxical, 

(or,  not  very  tar  removed  irom  j  ^ 

This  springs,  I  think,  from  a  kind  of  peevishness.  It 
is  a  fair  criticism,  in  its  way  amusing  :  but  it  did  not 

M.B.P.  49  K 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


come  from  the  sudden  hot  thrill  of  the  mind  which  we 
call  inspiration. 

Compare  the  Pathetic  Imposture  with  what  one  of  the 
critics  is  supposed  to  say  about  Kolniyatsch.* 

'  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  a  time  may  be  not  far 
distant,  and  may  indeed  be  nearer  than  many  of  us  suppose, 
when  Luntic  Kolniyatsch  will,  rightly  or  wrongly,  be 
reckoned  by  some  of  us  as  not  the  least  of  those  writers  who 
are  especially  symptomatic  of  the  early  twentieth  century 
and  are  possibly  "  for  all  time  "  or  for  a  more  or  less  certainly 
not  inconsiderable  period  of  time.' 

That  is  finely  said.    But  I  myself  go  somewhat  further. 

The  difference  is  very  obvious,  and  probably  arises 
from  the  greater  interest  that  Mr.  Beerbohm  feels  in  an 
imaginary  author  than  in  a  real  politician.  In  fact,  it 
is  quite  on  the  cards  that  Mr.  Beerbohm  would  have 
made  no  parody  of  the  leader-writers  but  for  the  fact 
that  Lord  Rosebery  is  so  very  much  more  than  a  poli- 
tician. It  is  that — much  more — which  prompted  him 
to  offer  a  somewhat  oblique  sympathy. 

In  the  same  volume  Mr.  Beerbohm  scrutinises,  in  the 
same  way.  The  Humour  of  the  Public,  and  compiles  a 
list  (which  he  proceeds  to  discuss  quite  literally)  of  the 
themes  which  amuse  the  public,  whether  in  music-halls 
or  in  the  comic  papers  : 

Mothers-in-law 

Henpecked  husbands 

Twins 

Old  maids 

Jews 

*  And  Even  Now. 


50 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEE RB OHM 


Frenchmen,  Germans,  Italians,  Niggers  (not 
Russians,  or  other  foreigners  of  any 
denomination) 

Fatness 

Thinness 

Long  hair  {worn  by  a  man) 

Baldness 

Sea-sickness 

Stuttering 

Bad  cheese 

"  Shooting  the  moon "  (slang  expression  for 
leaving  a  lodging-house  without  paying  the 
bill). 

There  is  no  nonsense  about  that  essay  :  it  is  a  scien- 
tific enquiry,  based  upon  honest  research.  The  author 
finds  a  plausible  explanation  for  the  public  laugh  in 
each  case  except  that  of  bad  cheese,  which  beats  him, 
as  well  it  may. 

Earlier  in  this  essay,  we  have  one  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's 
many  well- justified  laments  for  the  past. 

The  music-halls  I  have  known  for  many  years.  I  mean, 
of  course,  the  real  old-fashioned  music-halls,  not  those 
depressing  palaces  where  you  see  by  grace  of  a  biograph 
things  that  you  have  seen  much  better,  and  without  a 
headache,  in  the  street,  and  pitiable  animals  being  forced 
to  do  things  which  Nature  has  forbidden  them  to  do — ^things 
which  we  can  do  so  very  much  better  than  they,  without 
any  trouble.  Heaven  defend  me  from  those  meaningless 
palaces  I  But  the  little  old  music-halls  have  always 
attracted  me  by  their  unpretentious  raciness,  their  quaint 
monotony,  the  reaUty  of  the  enjoyment  on  all  those  stohdly 
rapt  faces  in  the  audience. 


51 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 

At  the  end  of  Yet  Again  there  are  nine  Httle  essays 
collected  (and  rescued  mainly  from  the  Saturday 
Review)  under  the  title  "  Words  for  Pictures."  These 
are,  of  course,  Mr.  Beerbohm's  own  strictly  individual 
words  for  certain  pictures  which  are,  for  the  most  part, 
well  known.  '  Peter  the  Dominican '  by  Giovanni 
Bellini  (in  the  National  Gallery),  Ho-Tei,  a  coloured 
drawing  by  Hokusai,  and  Morland's  '  The  Visit '  (at 
Hertford  House)  especially  call  forth  Mr.  Beerbohm's 
exquisite  sensibility.  He  thinks  that  Ho-Tei,  with  his 
imperial  paunch,  must  be  a  hermit — "  one  not  more 
affable  than  Diogenes,  yet  wiser  than  he,  being  at  peace 
with  himself  and  finding  (as  it  were)  the  honest  man 
without  emerging  from  his  own  tub." 


52 


VII 


At  Christmas  of  1896,  the  Saturday  Review  brought 
out  an  illustrated  supplement  of  considerable  distmc- 
tion.  There  was  a  delightful  design  on  the  cover  by 
William  Rothenstein  and  by  him  also,  withm  that 
cover,  drawings  and  a  lithograph.  There  was  a  prnit 
of  Watts'  portrait  of  "  the  late  Mr.  William  Morris, 
whilst  a  coloured  reproduction,  Rossetti's  "  Annuncia- 
tion," though  it  had  been  painted  in  1850,  could  not 
then  have  been  so  familiar,  even  to  the  expected  readers 
of  that  Supplement,  as  it  is  now. 

And  there  were  two  contributions  by  Max  Beerbohm 
—a  not  very  successful  caricature  of  Mr.  Wilson  Barrett, 
done  in  crayon  (which  is  not  the  right  medium  for  Max's 
way  of  drawing),— and  a  series  of  parodies  called  '  A 
Christmas  Garland." 

So  that  then  was  the  original  whence  sprang  the  book 
of  the  same  name  which  was  not  published  until  1913. 
The  victims  satirised  in  that  old  Christmas  Supplement 
were  M*r**  C*r*lli,  R*ch*rd  Le  G*ll**nne,  H.  G. 
W*lls,  I*n  M*cl*r*n,  and  G**rge  M*r*d*th ;  whilst 
the  final  sprig  was  signed,  without  vowel-asterisks— 
"  Max  Beerbohm."  In  that  last  essay  there  is  forgotten 
no  vanity  or  affectation  of  which,  up  to  that  time,  he 
had  been  guilty  ;  or  of  which  he  fails  to  take  golden 

advantage.  .  .  a 

The  first  story  is  called  The  Sorrows  of  Mtllicent :  A 

53 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 

Christmas  Cameo,  in  which  MiUicent  Coral,  clasping  to 
her  bosom  a  precious  burden  wrapped  in  a  shawl  (which 
turns  out  to  be,  not  a  baby,  but  a  copy  of  her  novel. 
The  Coat  of  Many  Colours,  15th  edition)  goes  miserably 
to  Grosvenor  Square  to  beard  Blackheart,  the  critic, 
"  who  had  received  a  large  douceur  not  to  review  her 
book  and  had  been  promised  a  royalty  of  15  per  cent, 
on  every  copy  not  sold  after  the  hundredth  thousand." 
She  even  produces  and  utterly  shatters  the  base  critic 
with  "  an  autograph  letter  from  the  Secretary  of  a 
Great  Personage."  "  His  Royal  Highness,"  she  reads 
aloud,  "  directs  me  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your 
book,  and  to  say  that  he  anticipates  reading  it  with 
much  pleasure," — all  of  which  shows  us,  once  more, 
that  razors  should  be  kept  for  their  proper  uses. 

To  be  fair,  Mr.  Beerbohm  never  thought  that  worth 
reprinting. 

But  Simpson,  who  in  the  early  manner  of  Mr.  W*lls 
defossilizes  a  cannon-ball,  that  had  been  fired  at  Naseby, 
and  makes  it  into  a  Christmas  pudding  is  worthier  of 
Mr.  Beerbohm's  steel. 

"  It  has  been  under  treatment  in  my  laboratory,  for 
the  last  ten  years.  .  .  .  For  ten  years  I  have  been  test- 
ing, acidising  .  .  .  thing  began  to  decompose  under  my 
very  ...  at  length  brown,  pulpy  substance,  such  as 
you  might  .  .  .  sultanas  .  .  .  Now  comes  in  the 
curious  part  of  the  ..." 

The  parodies  in  the  book  are  mainly  drawn  from  the 
files  of  the  Saturday  Review,  though  not  from  that 
particular  number.  In  a  Note  at  the  beginning,  Mr. 
Beerbohm  tells  us  that  the  compositors  of  all  our 

54 


THE  WRITINGS  OFMAXBEERBOHM 


higher-toned  newspapers  keep  Stevenson's  sentence 
about  "  playing  the  sedulous  ape "  set  up  in  type 
always,  "  so  constantly  does  it  come  tripping  off  the 
pens  of  all  higher-toned  reviewers."  And  he  goes  on 
to  say  that  he  acquired  the  habit  "  of  aping,  now  and 
again,  quite  sedulously,  this  or  that  live  writer — some- 
times, it  must  be  admitted,  in  the  hope  of  learning 
rather  what  to  avoid."  And  he  finishes  his  note  by 
saying  :  "  The  book  itself  may  be  taken  as  a  sign  that 
I  think  my  own  style  is,  at  length,  more  or  less  formed." 

Even  an  easy  and  obvious  skit  of  a  peculiar  style  may 
be  clever  and  amusing,  but  there  is  much  more  than 
mere  cleverness  in  these.  Anybody  with  a  knack  for 
mimicry  can  exaggerate  the  salient  eccentricities  of  an 
exceptional  manner  of  writing,  but  in  A  Christmas 
Garland  the  parody  is  two-fold  :  the  style  and  the 
method  of  construction  is  imitated,  but  not  too  grossly 
caricatured ;  and,  better  still,  the  treatment,  apart 
from  the  actual  subject  of  each  story  or  essay — which 
is  Christmas — is  recognisable  as  the  potential  treat- 
ment of  each  separate  victim.  Mr.  Beerbohm  might 
be  described  as  a  devil  who  has  temporarily  possessed 
these  writers,  but  he  never  burlesques  them. 

In  Some  Damnable  Errors  about  Christmas  Mr.  G.  K. 
Ch*st*rt*n  is  made  to  say  : — ■ 

"  If  Euclid  were  alive  to-day  (and  I  dare  say  he 
is)  ..."  ;  and  later  : 

We  do  not  say  of  Love  that  he  is  short-sighted.  We  do 
not  say  of  Love  that  he  is  myopic.  We  do  not  say  of  Love 
that  he  is  astigmatic.  We  say  quite  simply,  Love  is  blind. 
We  might  go  further  and  say,  Love  is  deaf.    That  would  be 

55 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


a  profound  and  obvious  truth.  We  might  go  further  still 
and  say,  Love  is  dumb.  But  that  would  be  a  profound  and 
obvious  lie. 

Mr.  J*hn  G*lsw*rthy  tells  a  story  where  an  old  lady, 
Jacynth,  sorely  tempts  her  old  husband  on  Christmas 
morning  to  feed  the  birds  outside  their  window.  He 
has  to  remember  that  "  these  sporadic  doles  can  do  no 
real  good  " — must  even  degrade  the  birds  who  receive 
them. 

And  Fond  Hearts  Askew  is  a  beautiful  title  for  a  story 
by  Mr.  M**r*ce  H*wl*tt. 

To  two  of  the  branches  in  this  Garland  there  are 
footnotes  of  apology  which  delightfully  show  the 
author's  almost  ingenuous  anxiety  not,  in  the  first  case, 
to  hurt  the  susceptibilities  of  a  living,  and,  in  the 
second,  to  offer  disrespect  to  a  dead  writer.  And  it  is 
to  be  supposed  that  such  footnotes  are  necessary, 
because  not  every  one  is  alive  to  the  fact  that  mockery 
and  admiration  for  the  same  individual  may  go  quite 
happily  together  hand  in  hand. 

It  has  been  said  that  P.C.  X.  36  is  unfair  to  Mr. 
R*dy*rd  K*pl*ng,  because  it  is  a  parody  of  an  extremely 
various  author's  least  pleasing  manner,  rather  than  of 
what  may  be  called  his  average  manner.  But  I  cannot 
see  that  it  is  unfair.  You  might  just  as  well  say  that 
it  is  unfair  or  in  bad  taste  to  caricature  a  man's  big  and 
ugly  nose  and  not  to  exaggerate  the  sweetness  of  his 
smile.  You  might  as  well  say,  further,  that  the  only 
fair  course  is  to  blend  the  bigness  of  the  nose  with  the 
sweetness  of  the  smile.  If  you  are  a  caricaturist,  you 
may  do  this,  but  you  will  pin  j^our  faith  to  the  bigness 

56 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


of  the  nose,  if  you  believe  that  it  is  more  truly  repre- 
sentative than  the  sweet  smile. 

In  the  story  of  PoUce-Constable  Judlip,  Mr.  K*pl*ng's 
trick  of  displaying  technical  knowledge  in  an  acutely 
nonchalant  fashion  is  delightfully  counterfeited,  so 
that  to  the  general  reader  Mr.  Beerbohm's  nonsense 
seems  just  as  right  as  Mr.  Kiphng's  (no  doubt)  aca- 
demical accuracies. 

"  Now  when  Judlip  sighs  the  sound  is  like  unto  that 
which  issues  from  the  vent  of  a  Crosby  boiler  when  the 
cog-gauges  are  at  260°  F." 

Judlip,  moreover,  flashes  "  his  45-c.p.  down  the  slot 
of  a  two-grade  Yale." 

In  fact — is  it  nonsense  ? 

Judlip,  again,  is  not  so  much  a  name  that  Mr. 
K*pl*ng  might  have  chosen  as  the  perfect  name  for  a 
character  that  he  might  have  invented.  The  "  Police 
Station  Ditty  "  does  more  than  merely  recall  B*rr*ck 

Then  it's  collar  'im  tight, 

In  the  name  of  the  Lawd  ! 
'Ustle  'im,  shake  'im  till  'e's  sick  ! 

Wot,  'e  would,  would  'e  ?  Well, 
Then  yei've  got  ter  give  'im  'Ell, 

An'  it's  trunch,  trunch,  truncheon  does  the  trick. 

There  is  no  trifling  (and  perhaps  temporary)  insin- 
cerity of  which  an  author  may  be  guilty,  for  which  Mr. 
Beerbohm  fails  to  belabour  him,  though  it  is  with  a 
jester's  bladder.  The  more  intimately  the  reader  is 
acquainted  with  the  writings  of  the  persons  mocked  in 
A  Christmas  Garland  the  more  severe  grows  the  strain 

57 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


upon  him  in  finding  epithets  of  admiration  for  the 
parodies. 

Visible  from  the  window  of  the  Wrackgarth's  parlour  was 
that  colossal  statue  of  Commerce  which  rears  itself  aloft  at 
the  point  where  Oodge  Lane  is  intersected  by  Blackstead 
Street.  Commerce,  executed  in  glossy  Doultonware  by 
some  sculptor  or  sculptors  unknown,  stands  pointing  her 
thumb  over  her  shoulder  towards  the  chimneys  of  far 
Hanbridge.  When  I  tell  you  that  the  circumference  of  that 
thumb  is  six  inches,  and  the  rest  to  scale,  you  will  under- 
stand that  the  statue  is  one  of  the  prime  glories  of  Bursley. 

That  is  from  Scruts,  by  Arn*ld  B*nn*tt,  and  the 
last  sentence  altogether  transcends  parody. 

Mr.  H*l**re  B*ll*c  explains  exactly  how  a  wayfarer 
knocked  at  the  door  of  an  Inn. 

Now  the  door  was  Oak.  It  had  been  grown  in  the  forest 
of  Boulevoise,  hewn  in  Barre-le-Neuf,  seasoned  in  South 
Hoxton,  hinged  nowhere  in  particular,  and  panelled — and 
that  most  abominably  well — in  Arque,  where  the  peasants 
sell  their  souls  for  skill  in  such  handicraft. 

In  discovering  that  "  there  never  was  a  writer  except 
Dickens  "  Mr.  G**rge  M**re  is  interpreted  as  saying  : 
"  There  are  moments  when  one  does  not  think  of  girls, 
are  there  not,  dear  reader  ?  "  and  is  made  to  ta,ke  a  mean 
advantage  of  that  Miss  Arabella  who  went  skating  with 
Mr.  Winkle,  by  watching  her  climbing  over  a  stile  and 
noticing  that  she  is  knock-kneed. 

The  first  parody  in  the  book  is  of  Henry  James,  but 
an  earlier  and  more  concentrated  essence  of  that 
author's  manner  is  to  be  found  written,  in  Mr.  Beer- 
bohm's  way,  not  under  or  over,  but  close  about  two 

58 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


caricatures  of  him.  In  one  of  these  Henry  James  is 
revisiting  America. 

...  so  that,  in  fine,  let,  without  further  beating  about 
the  bush,  me  make  to  myself  amazed  acknowledgment  that, 
but  for  the  certificate  of  birth  which  I  have,  so  very  indubit- 
ably, on  me,  I  might,  in  regarding,  and,  as  it  somewhat  were, 
overseeing,  a  Vceil  de  voyageur,  these  dear  good  people,  find 
hard  to  swallow,  or  even  to  take  by  subconscious  injection, 
the  great  idea  that  I  am — oh,  ever  so  indigenously  ! — one 
of  them. 


"  As  it  somewhat  were  ..." 

But  these  explicit  occasions  are  not  those  only  on 
which  Mr.  Beerbohm  has  slipped  into  step  with  this — 
I  might  almost  say — with  his — master. 

In  reading  the  stories  and  essays  in  A  Christmas 
Garland,  you  are  apt,  sometimes,  to  forget  that  they 
are  parodies  in  your  present  interest  in  their  intrinsic 
qualities :  and  you  find  yourself  judging  them  as 
stories,  as  essays,  and  are  disappointed  because  some 
point  is  too  laboriously  set  forth,  some  trick  of  rhythm 
over-strained  :  and  on  the  heels  of  that  disappointment 
you  wake  up  from  reading  the  story  on  its  own  merits, 
greatly  relieved  to  remember  that  it  is  a  skit.  All  art 
calls  for  self-sacrifice,  for  the  stifling  of  happy  but 
inappropriate  impulses,  for  rigid  selection,  for  ruthless 
rejection.  But  to  art  which  deliberately  spoils  a  good 
story  in  order  to  make  it  a  better  parody  I  make  my 
profoundest  bow. 

59 


VIII 


Probably  nothing  written  about  a  living  author  has 
ever  been  so  widely  quoted  as  Mr.  Shaw's  introduction 
of  Max  Beerbohm  to  the  readers  of  the  Saturday  Review, 
It  was  indeed  at  his  express  suggestion  that  the  post 
of  dramatic  critic  on  that  paper  was  offered  to  Mr. 
Beerbohm  ;  a  post  which  Mr.  Shaw  had  held  for  four 
years.  On  May  21st,  1898,  he  wrote  at  the  end  of  his 
"  valedictory  "  message 

"  The  younger  generation  is  knocking  at  the  door ; 
and  as  I  open  it  there  steps  spritely  in  the  incomparable 
Max  .  .  .  For  the  rest  let  Max  speak  for  himself.  I 
am  off  duty  for  ever,  and  am  going  to  sleep." 

The  incomparable  ...  as  my  readers  have  seen,  Mr. 
Beerbohm,  though  in  a  spirit  of  the  utmost  modesty, 
has  even  quoted  that  himself. 

When  his  turn  came  to  say  good-bye  twelve  years 
later,  he  too  sighed  with  relief. 

Is  love  of  my  readers  as  strong  in  me  as  hatred  of  my 
Thursdays  ?  (Thursday,  the  eleventh  hour,  was  the  day 
on  which  he  wrote  his  weekly  article.)  It  is  not  half  so 
strong.  I  feel  extraordinarily  light  and  gay  in  writing  this 
farewell — at  least,  I  shall  as  soon  as  I  have  finished  it.  And 
yet  .  .  .  habit  is  mighty  ;  and  habit  .  .  .  may  yet  make 
me  envy  my  successor  here.  And  you,  by  the  same  token, 
will  miss  me  a  little,  for  a  little  while  ? 

He  was  a  good  critic,  with  the  liveliest  possible 
perceptions  and  the  most  sensitive  appreciation  of  high 


60 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 

drama  and  fine  acting.  He  hardly  ever  made  impracti- 
cable demands  ;  he  was  never  priggish  ;  never  wilfully- 
obscure  ;  his  generalisations  were  (generally)  well- 
deserved. 

In  writing  a  modern  play,  an  author  feels  bound  to  pay 
some  kind  of  attention  to  probability,  and  tries  (often 
failing)  to  make  his  characters  seem  human.  In  writing  a 
period-play,  however,  he  is  apt  to  feel  that  such  things  are 
of  no  importance. 

Odd  as  it  may  sound  that  may  be  taken  quite  literally 
and  is  profoundly  true,  just  as  it  is  very  largely  true  of 
"  period  "  novels.  If  there  was  one  thing  which,  up  to 
the  publication  of  And  Even  Now,  withheld  from  Max 
Beerbohm  a  high  title  to  fame  it  was  the  fact  that  he, 
as  indeed  do  so  great  a  majority  of  us,  hated  to  so  much 
better  purpose  than  he  loved  :  and  so  the  plays  which 
he  disliked  provided  for  him  more  appropriate  oppor- 
tunities than  those  which  he  admired. 

At  the  end  of  one  week's  contribution,  which  was,  in 
fact,  a  "  general  "  article  he  wrote  ; 

P.S. — When  I  said  that  I  had  no  play  to  write  about  this 

week,  I  forgot   .    The  production  was  not  indeed 

memorable.  Enough  that  I  saw  it,  that  the  audience 
seemed  to  be  amused  by  it,  and  that  I  seemed  not  to  be. 

On  another  occasion : 

I  shall  continue  my  visits  to  the  Gaiety  and  the  Shaftes- 
bury, where  the  shows  are  good  of  their  kind,  giving  the 
Savoy  my  best  wishes  and  my  widest  berth. 

"  Plays  about  children  written  for  adults,"  he  said 
once,  "  I  can  tolerate.  But  plays  about  adults  written 
for  children  are  apt  to  bore  me." 

61 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


But  there  is  little  point  in  quoting  from  criticisms  of 
plays  which  lost  their  "  uptodation  "  (as  he  called  it 
once)  twenty  years  ago. 

Before  that  Mr.  Beerbohm  had  written  for  To- 
morrow— a  magazine  which  ran  through,  amongst  other 
things,  the  year  1896,  and  was  edited  by  Mr.  J.  T. 
Grein.  "  Ex  Cathedra,"  he  reviewed  books,  and  made 
observations  about  modern  statuary  and  other  matters 
which  were  subsequently  dove-tailed  together  to  make 
the  essay  //  /  were  Mdile,  in  More, 

In  The  Idler  for  May,  1898,  just  after  the  death  of 
Aubrey  Beardsley,  he  wrote  in  appreciative  memory  of 
the  artist,  and  showed  that  he  could  form  and  express 
an  opinion  upon  a  given  point  without  the  smallest 
deviation  from  that  point. 

"  He  died,"  he  wrote  of  Beardsley,  "  having  achieved 
masterpieces,  at  an  age  when  normal  genius  has  as  yet 
done  little  of  which  it  will  not  be  heartily  ashamed 
hereafter." 

And  then,  wanting  to  make  sure  of  a  fair  hearing  and 
being  unable  to  avoid  mention  of  the  general  attitude 
to  Beardsley' s  drawings,  he  lets  the  public  down  as 
lightly  as  he  can  : 

"  Those  who  knew  Beardsley  only  through  his  work 
imagined  that  he  must  be  a  man  of  somewhat  forbidding 
character.  His  powerful,  morbid  fancy  really  repelled 
them,  and  to  them  the  very  beauty  of  its  expression 
may  have  seemed  a  kind  of  added  poison." 

The  facts  could  not  have  been  more  luminously 
epitomised. 

He  then  proceeded  to  demolish  the  popular  fallacy. 
62 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


Not  infrequently,  throughout  his  career,  he  has 
derided  other  critics  ;  though  only  once,  as  far  as  I  can 
remember,  on  (his  own)  personal  grounds.  The 
instances  given  in  this  book  show  that  he  was  in  a 
position  to  do  so  ;  and,  for  his  own  part,  he  has  and 
always  had  the  faculty  for  discrimination. 

Certain  reviewers  had  impugned  Beardsley's  tech- 
nique :  and  had  fallen  back  on  that  old  refuge  of  those 
who  wish  to  combine  spleen  and  savoir  faire  in  art 
criticism,  but  don't  know  quite  how  to  set  about  it, — 
"  He  can't  draw." 

I  think,  says  Mr.  Beerbohm,  it  was  in  the  third  number  of 
the  Yellow  Book  that  two  pictures  by  hitherto  unknown 
artists  were  reproduced.  One,  a  large  head  of  Mantegna,  by 
Philip  Broughton;  the  other,  a  pastel-study  of  a  French  ■ 
woman,  by  Albert  Foschter.  Both  the  drawings  had  rather 
a  success  with  the  reviewers,  one  of  whom  advised  Beardsley 
"  to  study  and  profit  by  the  sound  and  scholarly  draughts- 
manship of  which  Mr.  Philip  Broughton  furnishes  another 
example  in  his  famiUar  manner."  Beardsley,  who  had  made 
both  the  drawings  and  invented  both  the  signatures,  was 
greatly  amused  and  delighted. 

In  1906  Mr.  Beerbohm  paid,  on  behalf  of  the  Daily 
Mail,  his  first  visit  to  Italy.  And  when,  travelling  by 
way  of  Switzerland,  he  saw  "  Ramiola  "  in  large  letters 
at  a  "  mountain-crushed  "  station — "  I  had  a  vague 
notion,"  he  says,  "  that  it  was  the  birthplace  of 
Petrarch  "  ;  though  in  fact  it  turned  out  to  be  the 
name  of  a  much  advertised  patent  medicine. 

Really  the  pith  and  character  of  these  articles  about 
Italy  lies  not  so  much  in  his  descriptions  of  places  and 
pictures,  as  in  his  attitude  to  sight-seeing.    What  he 

63 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 

wanted,  he  explained,  was  to  see,  not  to  have  seen. 
Always  a  connoisseur  of  the  finer  shades  of  intellectual 
enjoyment,  he  fully  understood  the  folly  of  "  seeing  the 
sights  "  to  any  extensive  and  deliberate  degree.  How 
much  better,  he  seems  to  argue,  it  is  just  to  take  in 
what  passes  by.  Mountains  which  come  to  Mahommet 
save  a  lot  of  walking.  The  fact  is  that  English  and 
American  tourists  cannot  bear  the  thought  of  not  seeing 
what  they  have  paid  and  come  a  long  distance  to  see  : 
and,  curiously,  many  of  them,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, rather  despise  the  pleasures  that  have  not  been 
paid  for. 

Mr.  Beerbohm  had  heard  a  great  deal  about  Padua, 
and  thither  he  went  from  Venice.  But  he  returned  the 
next  day,  not  out  of  any  perversity  in  refusing  to  like 
what  it  was  evidently  the  correct  thing  to  like,  but 
because  he  found  Padua,  even  if  it  was  the  birthplace 
of  Mantegna,  oppressive  and  dull. 

That  Italian  tour  achieved  nothing  immediately 
remarkable  for  him  as  a  writer,  but  it  was  then  that  he 
fell  in  love  with  the  country  and,  not  many  years  later, 
he  settled  there. 

Before  closing  a  somewhat  perfunctory  survey  of 
Mr.  Beerbohm's  miscellaneous  work — his  odd  jobs — I 
should  give  some  account  of  his  little  play,  A  Social 
Success.  This  was  first  produced  by  Sir  George  Alex- 
ander at  the  Palace  Theatre,  in  January,  1913,  and  was 
again  performed,  as  a  curtain-raiser,  at  the  St.  James's, 
a  year  later. 

The  Persons  of  the  play  were  as  follows  : 

Tommy  Dixon.    Aged  30,  clean-shaven,  debonair. 
64 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


The  Duchess  of  Huntingdon.    Handsome,  a  widow, 
aged  40. 

The  Earl  of  Amersham.    Full-bodied,  sleek,  red- 
faced  man  of  53.    Fair  hair  turning  grey, 
small  fair  moustache. 
The  Countess  of  Amersham.    Pretty,  romantic- 
looking  woman  of  29.    Dark  hair. 
Edward  Bobbins.    Three  or  four  years  older  than 
Tommy,  rather  stiff  and  formal,  long  serious 
face,  clean  shaven. 
Hawkins.    Valet,  acting  as  butler. 
Tommy  Dixon  is  so  irresistible,  is  in  such  request, 
that  his  hfe  is  a  burden  to  him.    What  he  wants,  he  tells 
his  friend  Bobbins,  is  "  Tranquility,  independence,  quiet 

fun.    Books — pipes  "     But  Society  never  leaves 

him  alone — dances  every  night,  more  dinners  than  he 
can  possibly  eat,  five-deep  in  luncheons  every  day.  He 
has  been  growing  more  and  more  desperate.  Hitherto 
he  has  seen  no  way  out.  People  have  been  known  to — • 
emigrate,  in  order  to  avoid  being  killed  by  kindness, 
but  Tommy  can  think  of  nothing  really  effective,  bind- 
ing, and  final  except  to  be  caught  cheating  at  cards. 
That  is  the  one  irremissible  offence. 

So  the  curtain  goes  up  just  before  the  hideous  dis- 
covery. Lord  Amersham  is  furious.  "  Sir ! "  he 
shouts  in  his  rage,  and  Lady  Amersham  says,  faintly, 
"  Don't  call  him  '  Sir.'  " — which,  such  is  the  effect  of  a 
poignant  moment  upon  the  human  sense  of  fitness,  is, 
I  believe,  exactly  what  she  would  have  said.  In  any 
case,  Tommy  has  for  the  moment  produced  the  desired 
result,  and  he  is  presently  left  alone  with  the  prim 

M.B.P.  65  F 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


Bobbins,  who  promptly  tries  to  snatch  away  his  glass 
of  whiskey  and  soda  under  the  impression  that  it  must 
be  arsenic.  Then  Tommy  explains.  Robbins  is  rather 
wistfully  jealous  of  his  old  friend. 

"  Tommy — Tommy  to  every  one,"  he  says.  "  No- 
body ever  called  me  '  Ned.'  " 

"  Is  your  name  Edward  ?  " 

"  There  !  After  all  these  years  !  You  didn't  even 
know  my  Christian  name." 

"  I  knew  your  initial  was  E." 

*'  You  never  called  me  E." 

"  E,"  says  Tommy  kindly. 
Thanks,  old  fellow." 

Tommy  goes  on  to  explain  what  a  life  it  is  he  has  been 
made  to  lead. 

The  married  women,  they  don't  want  you  to  make  love 
to  them.  But  they  want  you  to  want  to  make  love  to  them, 
all  the  time.  And  if  they  think  you're  making  love  to 
anyone  else — or  if  they  think  anyone  else  is  wanting  you  to 
want  to — then  there's  a  deuce  of  a  row.  .  .  . 

But  presently  the  Duchess  rings  up  on  the  telephone 
to  forgive  him,  and  Lady  Amersham  returns  in  order  to 
run  away  with  him,  only  a  few  minutes  before  her  hus- 
band dashes  back  to  apologise  for  the  hard  things  he 
has  said.    It  is,  after  all,  a  wasted  effort. 

The  little  play  is  a  very  pleasing  bit  of  nonsense,  but 
in  that  last  quotation  one  seems  to  catch  an  echo.  In 
fact,  that — that — that  almost  might  not  have  been 
written  by  Max  Beerbohm  at  all. 


66 


IX 


Zuleika  Dobson,  or  mi  Oxford  Love  Story,  is  the  only 
long  novel  that  Max  Beerbohm  has  published.  It  was 
planned  and  partly  written  in  the  late  'nineties,  though 
no  doubt  the  new  part  was  not  added  without  a  most 
scrupulous  revision  of  the  old.  To  be  willing  and  able 
to  continue  writing  a  story  at  all  dropped  twelve  or 
thirteen  years  before  is,  you  say,  remarkable  evidence 
of  the  persistency  with  which  Max  Beerbohm  had 
remained  his  old  self.  And  yet  it  is  only  his  old  self's 
shadow  in  which  the  pages  of  Zuleika  Dobson  lurk. 
Like  Yet  Again  the  book  belongs  to  the  "  transition 
period."  Unlike  Yet  Again  it  is,  rather  than  was, 
disappointing.  Read  when  it  first  appeared,  the 
beginning  was  so  good  that  you  read  on  and  on  to  the 
end,  buoyed  up  always  in  the  hope  that  some  twist  of 
sudden  inspiration,  some  turn  of  brilliantly  conceived 
events  would  destroy  the  monotony  of  that  long 
journey  down  the  last  two-thirds  of  the  story.  And 
every  now  and  again  there  was  a  flower  to  pick  by  the 
way,  and  at  the  end  of  all  what  seems  to  be  a  most 
praiseworthy  thistle.  And  such  was  the  virtue  of  that 
ending  that  you  allowed  it  to  make  too  much  weight 
in  summing  up  the  whole.  In  later  readings  you 
remember  that  the  ending  though  a  characteristic  and 
extreme  refinement  of  satire  is  only  a  thistle's  down 
after  all ;  and  though  you  will  reach  it  again  you  will 

67  F  2 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


do  so,  I  am  afraid,  by  quicker  means  than  you,  bred 
upon  the  principles  of  EucUd,  had  thought  possible. 

Zuleika  Dohson  must  be  measured  in  half  a  dozen 
different  dimensions.  First  of  all,  and  when  all's  said 
most  important,  it  must  be  judged  as  a  story.  It  is  not 
really  a  good  story.  All  the  undergraduates  of  Oxford 
throw  themselves  into  the  river  and  drown  partly  for 
the  love  of  Zuleika  but  partly  because  a  duke  sets  the 
example.  Mr.  Beerbohm  has  been  accused  of  doubtful 
taste  in  so  satirising  wholesale  suicide,  but  I  doubt  if  his 
taste  would  have  been  called  in  question  if  the  satire 
had  been  a  better  one,  wider  in  view,  fuller-blooded  in 
treatment.  It  lacks  gusto,  and  that  very  lack  seems 
somehow  to  create  an  impression  of  cruelty,  which,  as 
we  know,  may  be  in  the  best  of  taste.  Then,  in  part, 
the  book  is  a  general  skit  of  various  other  novelists  who 
have  written  about  Oxford  ;  and  is  in  that  respect  as 
good  as  so  general  a  skit  can  be.  It  is  a  satire  on 
Oxford  itself,  on  every  aspect  of  Oxford,  town  and  gown. 
In  that  it  is  brilliant  but  unfair  :  for,  on  the  whole,  the 
snobbery  of  undergraduates  is  travestied  in  the  wrong 
direction.  It  is  a  history,  every  word  of  which  is 
invented,  but  of  which  every  other  word  is  essentially 
true.  As  a  study  of  character  it  outstrips  realism  and 
enters  into  the  innermost  realm  of  genuine  art.  For 
Zuleika  herself  is  not  typical  though  she  may  recall  a 
certain  type.  You  may  call  her  an  excellent  caricature 
of  "  the  modern  young  woman."  But  she  is  much 
more  than  that.  She  is  Woman — and  "  modern  "  be 
hanged.  The  story  parodies  the  high  and  ancient  truth 
that  the  worthiest  of  men  are  prone  to  throw  them- 

68 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


selves  away  for  the  sake  of  utterly  worthless  women. 
The  early  chapters  recall  Max  Beerbohm  in  almost 
every  phase  and  find  for  him  fresh  pasture  as  well — 
notably  in  that  quadrangle  of  Judas  College  called 
Salt  Cellar.  For  he  has  invented  a  history  of  this 
college,  which  has  the  very  breath  of  exuberant  authen- 
ticity. (Regarding  the  antiquity  of  his  own  old  college, 
however,  he  stubbornly  supports,  though  not  here,  an 
erroneous  view.) 

It  is  difficult  to  quote,  because  quotations  imply 
gems,  and  the  early  chapters  of  Zuleika  Dohson,  without 
the  tiresome  glitter  which  becomes  a  weariness  is  a  mine 
of  them  :  and  it  is  better  to  keep  to  the  representative 
turns  of  thought.  The  first  quotation,  however,  shows 
the  author  merely  dodging  the  conventions. 

Zuleika  was  not  strictly  beautiful.  Her  eyes  were  a  trifle 
large,  and  their  lashes  longer  than  they  need  have  been. 
An  anarchy  of  small  curls  was  her  chevelure,  a  dark  upland 
of  misrule,  every  hair  asserting  its  rights  over  a  not  dis- 
creditable brow.  For  the  rest,  her  features  were  not  at  all 
original  .  .  .  The  mouth  was  a  mere  replica  of  Cupid's  bow, 
lacquered  scarlet  and  strung  with  the  littlest  pearls.  No 
apple-tree,  no  wall  of  peaches,  had  not  been  robbed,  nor  any 
Tyrian  rose-garden,  for  the  glory  of  Miss  Dobson's  cheeks. 
Her  neck  was  imitation-marble.  Her  hands  and  feet  were 
of  very  mean  proportions. 

This  young  woman  had  been  allowed  owing  to  some 
accident  of  appearance  and  personality,  to  seat  herself 
with  the  calmest  assurance  upon  a  pinnacle  of  fame, 
the  immediate  excuse  for  which  was  an  indifferent 
conjuring  entertainment.  This  is  the  account  of  her 
first  performance  : 

69 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


Her  repertory  was,  it  must  be  confessed,  old  and  obvious  ; 
but  the  children,  in  deference  to  their  hostess,  pretended  not 
to  know  how  the  tricks  were  done,  and  assumed  their  prettiest 
airs  of  wonder  and  delight  ...  In  fact,  the  whole  thing 
went  off  splendidly.  The  hostess  was  charmed,  and  told 
Zuleika  that  a  glass  of  lemonade  would  be  served  to  her  in 
the  hall. 

In  every  country  that  she  visited  the  men  went  mad 
for  her.  She  was  the  inspiration  of  the  New  York 
Press : 

Zuleika  Dobson  walking  on  Broadway  in  the  sables  gifted 
her  by  the  Grand  Duke  Salamander  Salamandrovitch  .  .  . 
she  says,  "  You  can  bounce  blizzards  in  them  "  ;  Zuleika 
Dobson  yawning  over  a  love-letter  from  Millionaire  Edel- 
weiss ;  relishing  a  cup  of  clam-broth,  she  says,  "  They  don't 
use  clams  out  there  "  ;  .  .  .  starting  for  the  musicale  given 
in  her  honour  by  Mrs.  Suetonius  X.  Meistersinger,  the  most 
exclusive  woman  in  New  York  ;  chatting  at  the  telephone 
to  Miss  Camille  Van  Spook,  the  best-born  girl  in  New  York  ; 
laughing  over  the  recollection  of  a  compliment  made  her  by 
George  Abimelech  Post,  the  best-groomed  man  in  New 
York. 

The  hero  of  this  novel  is  the  young  Duke  of  Dorset, 
of  whose  feet  it  is  said  :  "So  slim  and  long  were  they, 
of  instep  so  nobly  arched,  that  only  with  a  pair  of 
glazed  ox -tongues  on  a  breakfast  table  were  they 
comparable." 

Sweat,  Mr.  Bcerbohm  tells  us,  started  from  the  brows 
of  the  Emperors,  whose  busts  intersperse  the  railings 
of  the  Sheldonian,  as  Zuleika  Dobson  drove  by  ;  and 
he  goes  on  to  talk  of  those  Emperors,  asking — are  they 
now  too  little  punished,  after  all,  for  their  infamous 
misdeeds  ? 


70 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


Exposed  eternally  and  inexorably  to  heat  and  frost,  to 
the  four  winds  that  lash  them  and  the  rains  that  wear  them 
away,  they  are  expiating,  in  efhgy,  the  abominations  of  their 
pride  and  cruelty  and  lust.  Who  were  lechers,  they  are 
without  bodies  ;  who  were  tyrants,  they  are  crowned  never 
but  with  crowns  of  snow. 

And,  as  if  that  wasn't  enough  : 

Who  made  themselves  even  with  the  gods,  they  are  by 
American  visitors  frequently  mistaken  for  the  Twelve 
Apostles. 

The  origin  of  this  story,  Mr.  Beerbohm  says,  must  be 
ascribed  to  Clio — no  less  a  person.  She  was  bored,  it 
appears,  by  all  the  history  books  she  had  to  read. 

Some  of  the  mediaeval  chronicles  she  rather  liked.  But 
when,  one  day,  Pallas  asked  her  what  she  thought  of  "  The 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Eoman  Empire  "  her  only  answer 
was  0(TTi9  TOta  €;)(€(,  ev  rjSovfj  i^^L  eu  rjSovfj  rota  (For  people 
who  like  that  kind  of  thing,  that  is  the  kind  of  thing  they 
like). 

And  later  :  "It  occurred  to  her  how  fine  a  thing  history 
might  be  if  the  historian  had  the  novelist's  privileges." 
And  as  she  evidently  had  Mr.  Beerbohm' s  works  iv  rjSovf}, 
she  pressed  him  into  her  service.  In  that  way,  mobile 
but  invisible,  he  was  able  to  see  all  that  happened  to 
each  of  his  characters. 

There  are  indeed  many  happy  things  in  Zuleika 
Dobson,  but  they  seldom  form  an  inextricable  and 
inevitable  part  of  the  novel.  And  it  is  as  a  novel  that 
the  book  must  be  regarded ;  and  a  novel,  even  when 
its  incidents  are  fantastic,  and  remote  from  possible 
human  experience,  is  not  good  just  because  it  is  "  full 

71 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


of  good  things."  It  must  be  judged  as  a  whole.  As  a 
whole  the  book  would  be  infinitely  better  if  it  were 
pitilessly  abridged.  The  interminable  introspections  of 
the  Duke  during  his  last  day  of  life  perceptibly  hover  on 
the  border  line  between  wild  extravagance  and  realism. 
And  when  he  inclines  to  human  truth  the  Duke  is  not 
a  character  in  a  novel  at  all :  he  is  merely  thinking 
little  essays  for  Mr.  Beerbohm  to  write. 

As  a  whole  we  might  call  Zuleika  Dobson  an  essay 
"  On  Suicide  Considered  as  a  Social  Accomplishment  " 
because  it  does  emphatically  challenge  comparison  with 
Murder  Considered  as  one  of  the  Fine  Arts.  And 
de  Quincey  succeeded  in  one  of  the  ways  in  which 
Mr.  Beerbohm  did  not.  He  was  not  nearly  so  "  bril- 
liant "  as  Mr.  Beerbohm  :  there  are  few  gems  in  the 
essay  on  Murder.  But  with  consistently  high  spirits 
the  consideration  of  murder  is  kept  lightly  satirical. 

*  I  will  not  be  murdered,'  the  baker  shrieks.  '  What  for 
will  I  lose  my  precious  throat  ?  '  '  What  for  ?  '  said  I ; 
'  if  for  no  other  reason,  for  this — that  you  put  alum  into 
your  bread.  But  no  matter,  alum  or  no  alum  .  .  .  know 
that  I  am  a  virtuoso  in  the  art  of  murder — am  desirous  of 
improving  myself  in  its  details — and  am  enamoured  of  your 
vast  surface  of  throat,  to  which  I  am  determined  to  be  a 
customer.' 

There  is  nothing  in  the  least  horrible  about  that,  nor 
in  the  connoisseurs'  discussion  of  Thurtell. — '  Well  ! 
will  this  do  ?  '  'Is  this  the  right  thing  ?  '  '  Are  you 
satisfied  at  last  ?  '  " — exactly  as  though  they  were 
talking  over  Mr.  Beerbohm' s  latest  exhibition  of 
caricatures. 


72 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


Murder  in  de  Quincey's  hand  is  no  more  terrible 
than  an  amateur  vioHnist's  ohhligato.  Mr.  Beerbohm, 
on  the  other  hand,  does  not  really  win  one  over  to  the 
belief  that  suicide  is  rather  a  lark. 

But,  at  the  very  end  of  all,  Zuleika,  her  thirst  for 
admiration  in  no  wise  slaked  by  her  conquest  of  all  the 
undergraduates  of  Oxford  who  have  drowned  themselves 
for  love  of  her,  orders  a  special  train  to  Cambridge. 
And  that  culmination,  despite  the  difficulty  of  its 
approach,  is  managed  with  such  perfect  lightness,  so 
matter-of-fact  an  air,  that  until  a  little  time  has  passed, 
and  you  remember,  and  you  look  again,  you  allow  it  to 
overbalance  all  the  quite  serious  short-comings  which 
led  up  to  it. 


73 


X 


If  Mr.  Beerbohm  failed  partially  in  writing  a  long 
novel  he  abundantly  atoned  for  it  in  the  five  stories 
collected  under  the  title  of  Seven  Men.  (One  of  the 
stories  deals  with  two  men,  and  a  friend  of  mine  keeps 
a  register  of  the  people  who  ask  for  the  identity  of  the 
seventh.)  When  Max  Beerbohm  wrote  these  stories, 
which  were  published  in  book  form  in  1919,  he  had 
definitely  made  the  transition  referred  to  regarding 
Yet  Again  and  Zuleika  Dobson,  and  he  had  passed  that 
point  mentioned  earlier  where,  as  I  put  it,  the  apple-tree 
began  to  bear  fruit,  and  where  Mr.  Holbrook  Jackson's 
account  of  him  becomes  (as  no  one  will  appreciate  more 
readily  than  Mr.  Jackson  himself)  obsolete. 

Mr.  Beerbohm  had  ceased  to  be,  as  he  had  once  called 
himself,  a  dilettante,  a  petit-mattre  ;  he  had  dropped 
some,  not  all,  of  his  flippancy,  and  had  begun  to  take 
himself,  and  life,  seriously.  But  that  is  not  to  say 
that  he  had  changed,  except  along  his  own  lines. 
Because  an  author  expresses  genuine  feeling,  allows 
scope  to  the  humanity  in  him,  he  does  not  suffer,  or 
should  not,  the  reproach  of  being  called  earnest.  And 
that  word,  as  commonly  used  to-day  is,  in  regard  to 
fiction,  a  very  terrible  reproach.  For  we  mean  by 
"  earnestness "  in  artistic  writing  that  seriousness 
which  is  set  forth  not  only  without  humour  but  which 
makes  manifest  the  impossibility  of  there  being  a  sense 
of  humour  behind  the  sense  of  importance.  Earnest- 

74 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


ness  is  an  inalienable  and  indispensable  quality  of 
propaganda,  of  the  sermon,  of  edification  generally. 

Only  in  one  story  of  Seven  Men  appears  the  better 
seriousness,  so  veiled  as  not  to  be  recognised  by  every- 
one accustomed  to  the  author's  past  treatment  of 
emotion.  It  will  be,  rather,  the  people  who  come  to 
read  Seven  Men  before  the  earlier  books  and  who  make 
it  the  subject  of  an  unprejudiced  assay,  who  will 
immediately  put  a  right  valuation  upon  the  story  of 
James  Pethel. 

Really  James  Pethel  is  not  a  story,  nor  is  Savonarola 
Brown.  The  first  of  these  is  a  sketch  of  a  queer  and 
wistful  man,  genially  reckless  of  his  own  safety,  but 
abominably  reckless  where  others  are  concerned.  It 
is  not  quite  realistic — some  of  the  points  in  Pethel's 
very  subtle  character  are  necessarily  exaggerated  in 
order  that  they  may  be  fully  understood.  The  finest 
shades  of  actual  character  do  not  always  make  a  good 
story,  especially  when  that  story  is  a  short  one.  The 
same  rule,  more  robustly  applied,  holds  good  also  for 
the  stage.  Not  very  long  ago  an  actor  was  admonished 
by  a  critic  for  pulling  up  his  trousers  at  the  knee  as  he 
sat  down  during  an  emotional  crisis  of  the  play.  The 
critic  observed  that  a  man  in  such  circumstances  would 
not  have  thought  about  the  possible  bagginess  of  his 
trousers.  So  far  the  critic  was  quite  literally  right. 
But  what  he  really  wanted  to  say  was  that  the  man 
would  not  in  fact  have  pulled  at  his  trousers,  thought 
or  no  thought.  And  there,  in  intention,  he  was  wrong. 
In  life,  it  does  not  need  intense  agitation  to  wipe  out 
the  consciousness  of  an  action  which  by  habit  has  be- 

75 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 

come  purely  instinctive.  Whatever  the  man's  rapture  or 
his  agony  he  would  not  have  failed  to  pull  at  his 
trousers.  But  though  to  do  so  on  the  stage  was  strictly 
realistic  it  looked,  nevertheless,  slightly  ridiculous. 
And  an  actor  cannot  afford  to  look  ridiculous  in  an 
emotional  crisis.  He  must  in  short  do  something 
wrong  in  order  to  be  convincing.  James  Pethel  would 
have  done  and  would  not  have  done  many  things  in  life 
which  he  had  to  do  and  had  not  to  do  in  his  story. 

Brown,  christened  Ladhroke  because  his  people  lived 
in  the  Crescent  of  that  name,  was  nicknamed  Savonarola 
by  Mr.  Beerbohm  because  he  wrote  a  play — or  four  acts 
of  it — about  that  monk.  He  was  knocked  over  and 
killed  by  a  motor-omnibus  and  Mr.  Beerbohm,  acting 
as  his  literary  executor,  gives  us  the  four  acts  and  a 
scenario,  made  out  by  himself,  of  the  fifth. 

When  we  know  that  the  persons  of  the  play  include 
Lucrezia  Borgia,  S.  Francis  of  Assisi,  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  Dante,  and  Machiavelli  we  are  more  inclined  to 
call  it  a  revue. 

In  Act  iv.  Savonarola  speaks  : 

.  .  .  what  would  my  sire  have  said, 

And  what  my  dam,  had  anybody  told  them 

The  time  would  come  when  I  should  occupy 

A  felon's  cell  ?    0  the  disgrace  of  it ! — 

The  scandal,  the  incredible  come-down  ! 

.  .  .  I  see  in  my  mind's  eye 

The  public  prints — '  Sharp  Sentence  on  a  Monk.' 

Later,  Ccsare  Borgia  says  : 

Lo  !  'tis  none  other  than  the  fool  that  I 
Hoof'd  from  my  household  but  two  hours  agone. 


76 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


This,  after  pages  of  pseudo-Elizabethan. 

The  effective  trick  of  using  in  this  sort  of  way  modern 
phraseology  recalls  little  Mr.  iEneas,  the  mask-maker's, 
tradesman's  English  in  The  Happy  Hypocrite, 

"  I  want  the  mask  of  a  saint,"  Lord  George  Hell  says 
to  him. 

"  Mask  of  a  saint,  my  lord  ?  Certainly  !  With  or 
without  halo  ?  " 

Indeed,  again  and  again,  throughout  Seven  Men,  as 
well  as  And  Even  Now,  we  catch  echoes  of  Max  Beer- 
bohm's  earliest  work,  or,  more  exactly,  since  echoes  die 
away, — our  memories  are  jogged.  And  the  old  non- 
sense remains,  though  allusion  is  more  deft. 

Of  the  three  genuine  stories  in  this  book,  Hilary 
Malthy  and  Stephen  Braxton  is  an  account  of  two  rival 
novelists  who  run  neck  to  neck  in  social  as  in  literary 
triumphs  until  Maltby  goes  definitely  ahead  by  being 
asked  to  spend  a  week-end  at  the  Duchess  of  Hertford- 
shire's house,  Keeb. 

Maltby  had  written  ^nVZ  in  May  fair,  Braxton  A  Faun 
on  the  Cotswolds.  "  From  the  time  of  Nathaniel  Haw- 
thorne," says  Mr.  Beerbohm,  "  to  the  outbreak  of  the 
war,  current  literature  did  not  suffer  from  any  lack  of 
fauns." 

The  chief  points  of  the  story  are  the  appearance  of  a 
living  man's  ghost,  and  the  catalogue  of  the  woes  which 
betide  Maltby  :  cutting  himself  whilst  shaving,  spilling 
thick  soup  upon  a  white  waistcoat.  I  mention  these 
particular  accidents  because  they  are  the  things  or  the 
sort  of  things  which  have  been  so  often  and  so  inele- 
gantly dealt  with  by  "  humorous  "  writers,  dealt  with 

77 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


in  a  sort  of  way  that  not  only  fails  to  make  you  laugh 
even  against  your  will  but  that  kindles  in  you  the  hottest 
shame.  I  should  not  like  to  say  that  Mr.  Beerbohm 
chose  such  incidents  just  in  order  to  show  what  could 
be  done  with  them,  because  that  would  argue  a  plight 
of  mind  in  him  which  he  would  probably  repudiate,  but 
he  has  very  effectually  shown  that  a  popularly  comic 
subject  may  be  treated  in  a  very  delectable  manner. 

"But  "  pleasant  little  Malt  by  "  gets  very  little  satisfac- 
tion out  of  his  preferment.  In  the  first  place  his  con- 
science vexes  him  because  a  hint  from  him  to  the 
Duchess  at  an  Annual  Soiree  of  the  Inkwomen's  Club 
has  prevented  her  from  inviting  Braxton  also ;  and 
because  at  Keeb,  he  is  tormented  by  the  sight  at  the 
most  unfortunate  turns  of  "  not  actual  Braxton  but, 
roughly  speaking,  Braxton." 

Amongst  the  other  guests  at  Keeb  Hall  were  Mr. 
A.  J.  Balfour,  Mr.  Henry  Chaplin,  and  M.  de  Soveral. 
Mr.  Balfour  even  takes  a  small  part  in  the  action  of 
the  story.  .  .  . 

There  are  about  five  living  actors  who  can  be  deli- 
berately vulgar  on  the  stage  without  offending  you  ; 
you  will  forgive  two  or  three  people  of  your  acquaint- 
ance for  no  matter  what  they  may  say  in  front  of  any- 
body.  It  is  because  they  have  a  way  with  'em.  But 
not  every  one  can,  so  to  speak,  wear  a  billycoke  hat 
upon  one  side.  And  it  is  the  same  here.  If  Mr. 
Beerbohm  introduced  you,  illustrious  reader,  into  a 
story,  you  wouldn't  mind. 

In  the  first  story  of  this  book,  Enoch  Soames,  Mr. 
Beerbohm  gives  a  speaking  and  important  part  to  an 

78 


THE  WRITINGS  OFMAXBEERBOHM 


old  friend,  much  caricatured  by  him  in  return  for  many 
enhghtened  portraits  (nor  will  the  work  of  both  in 
respect  of  each  other  be  found  lacking  amongst  the 
illustrations  of  this  book).  Not  only  is  the  beginning 
of  the  story  autobiographical,  but  it  does  incidentally 
for  the  'nineties,  more  by  allusion  than  by  direct  state- 
ment, very  much  what  the  essay  1880  sets  out  to  do  for 
that  year.  It  reproduces  the  literary  and  a  little  of  the 
social  climate  of  that  decade  in  such  a  way  that  time 
seems  to  become  fluid,  rolling  back  and  exposing  old 
rocks  and,  more  especiall}^  old  houses  built  upon  the 
sand.  Indeed,  repetition,  by  no  means  in  the  adverse 
sense,  is  to  be  found  whenever  the  reader  takes  a  com- 
prehensive view  of  Max  Beerbohm's  work  from  1894  to 
the  present  day. 

In  retrospect  men  love  best  to  linger  in  the  days  when 
they  first  emerged  into  "  freedom  " — manhood  :  and 
Max  Beerbohm  and  his  contemporaries  go  back  and 
live  again  and  again  in  the  clover  of  the  'nineties.  It 
was  their  Golden  Age. 

But  since  Mr.  Beerbohm  has  seen  fit  to  pour  scorn,  by 
implication  and  with  apology,  upon  Enoch  Soames,  and 
has,  in  doing  so,  rather  endeared  to  us  that  futile  and 
foolish  person  (because  the  glamour  of  that  golden  past 
is  upon  his  writing),  I  do  hope  that  one  day,  when  this 
and  the  encompassing  years  shall  have  sunk  so  far  into 
the  background  that  only  their  outstanding  virtues, 
their  salient  absurdities  shall  be  remembered, — I  do 
hope  that  Mr.  Beerbohm  will  concoct  another  story 
about  them.  But  perhaps  I  oughtn't  to  wish  it, 
because  it  will  be  about  a  time  which,  though  it  has  gold 

79 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


for  him,  will  not  have  the  glitter  of  that  remoter  past : 
and  into  that  story,  which  I  want  against  my  better 
judgment,  he  could  not  put  the  heart  which  beats  in 
Enoch  Soames. 

It  may  be  as  well  to  correct  a  rather  general  impres- 
sion that  "  Enoch  Soames  "  is  a  portrait.  He  is  not. 
How  far  people  will  fetch  impressions  of  that  kind  is 
perpetually  amazing  to  writers  of  fiction.  Mrs.  Mor- 
daunt  received,  after  the  publication  of  her  delightful 
book,  Simpson,  a  letter  from  a  man  of  that  name  in 
Guatemala  or  Tai-o-hae,  asking  her,  in  no  spirit  of 
offence  where  none  was  meant,  how  she  knew  that  his 
sister  had  suffered  from  whooping-cough  at  the  age  of 
twelve,  or  something  of  that  nature.  That  is  one 
extreme.  But  every  day  there  are  heart-burnings  in 
country  towns  where  once  a  novelist  has  spent  a  holi- 
day. "  I  suppose  we  shall  all  be  in  your  next  book  ?  " 
And  they  are — at  least  they  are  acutely  scandalised  to 
find  themselves  there.  And  yet  were  every  possibility 
of  their  identities  excluded,  were  the  scene  not  a  country 
town  in  East  Anglia,  but  the  island  of — say — Malecula 
in  the  New  Hebrides,  and  all  the  characters  either 
cannibals  or  missionaries,  how  briskly  fanned  would 
seem  the  flames  that  burnt  those  hearts  ! 

Still,  it  is  preposterous  to  suppose  that  all — even 
greatly  distinguished — authors  actually  create  their 
characters,  making  them  up  entirely  out  of  their  heads  ; 
or  if  they  do  it  is  because  their  heads  are  choc-a-bloc 
with  memories  and  observations.  The  persons  who 
seem  to  be  at  all  real  in  books  are,  consciously  or  not, 
"  composite  portraits."    Half  a  dozen  people  may  have 

80 


Mr.  Charles  Conder. 
A  Caricature  by  Max. 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 

contributed  their  quota,  as  well  as  the  author  his 
imagination,  to  Enoch  Soames  ;  and  the  result  is  the 
"  prize  "  zany  of  the  'nineties. 
This  is  one  of  Soames'  poems  : 

To  A  Young  Woman. 

Thou  art,  who  hast  not  been  ! 

Pale  tunes  irresolute 

And  traceries  of  old  sounds 

Blown  from  a  rotted  flute 
Mingle  with  noise  of  cymbals  rouged  with  rust, 
Nor  not  strange  forms  and  epicene 

Lie  bleeding  in  the  dust, 

Being  wounded  with  wounds. 

For  this  it  is 
That  in  thy  counterpart 

Of  age-long  mockeries 
Thou  hast  not  been  nor  art  ! 

"  There  seemed  to  me,"  writes  Mr.  Beerbohm,  "  a 
certain  inconsistency  as  between  the  first  and  last  lines 
of  this." 

There  seems  to  me,  say  I,  a  very  remarkable  consis- 
tency as  between  this  poem  and  certain  others  of  the 
period  that  one  may  still  find,  with  difficulty,  by  zig- 
zagging across  the  Charing  Cross  Road,  and  searching 
the  trays  outside  the  windows  of  second-hand  book- 
shops. There  have  been  many  excellent,  but  rollicking, 
burlesques  of  that  sort  of  thing  :  but  this  is  true  parody 
and  the  difference  is  plain. 

For  sheer  neatness  and  ingenuity,  the  plot  of  this 
story  surpasses  anything  else  that  Mr.  Beerbohm  has 
written.    In  it  he  has  built  up  for  himself  the  most 

M.B  P.  81  G 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


complicated  difficulties,  each  one  of  which  in  the 
blandest  manner  and  with  the  clearest  head  he  over- 
comes. But  how  he  kept  his  head  in  resolving  so 
tangled  a  skein  will  be  the  wonder  of  any  writer  who  has 
ever  involved  himself  in  a  plot  of  far  less  intricacy  : 
but  the  result  for  the  reader  is  singularly  felicitous,  for 
almost  a  child  could  follow  him. 

At  the  end  the  author  relates  how,  in  the  Rue 
d'Antin  in  Paris,  he  nodded  and  smiled  at  the  Devil 
(who  is  appropriately  given  a  princely  but  darkling 
share  in  the  action  of  the  story) ;  and  the  Devil  stares 
at  him  without  recognition. 

"To  be  cut — deliberately  cut — by  him  !  I  was,  I 
still  am,  furious  at  having  had  that  happen  to  me." 

A  very  awkward  sentence — uncomfortable,  and  diffi- 
cult to  say  ?  Intentionally  so.  It  is  another  instance 
of  the  self-sacrifice  involved  in  good  art,  and  a  very 
great  self-sacrifice  to  a  stylist  such  as  Mr.  Beerbohm. 
But  nothing  short  of  that  triumphant  dissonance  would 
quite  have  conveyed  the  sense  of  childish  petulance 
which  is  here  required. 

Certainly  the  full  enjoyment  of  this  record  of  an  in- 
effectual and  decadent  poet  desiderates  some  familiarity 
with  the  period,  and  it  is  hard  to  say  how,  without  that 
familiarity — even  at  second  hand — the  story  would 
strike  one.  But  that  is  not  to  say  that  its  interest  is 
ephemeral.  If  we  acclaim  the  best  stories  in  the  lan- 
guage those  which  are  independent  of  period,  locality, 
class,  morals,  and  religion,  we  must  be  careful  not  to 
exclude  a  tale  that  derives  much  additional  enchant- 
ment from  one  at  least  of  these  shifting  values. 

82 


XI 


For  how  long  can  Max  Beerbohm  persist  in  choosing 
the  title  for  his  volumes  of  essays  from  the  same 
pedigree  ?  The  Works,  More,  Yet  Again,  And  Even 
Now, — and  there  occurs  to  me,  but  there  !  Mr.  Beer- 
bohm would  not  thank  me  for  offering  a  suggestion 
which,  however  unsound,  would  yet  diminish  the 
number  of  original  alternatives  that  remains  to  him. 

Criticism,  both  professional  and  conversational,  of 
And  Even  Now,  taking  its  cue  from  the  book's  contents, 
is  remarkably  diverse.  Some  people  are  disappointed 
with  Mr.  Beerbohm's  loss  of  flippancy  and  think  that  he 
has  become  heavy-handed  and  commonplace  ;  some 
believing  that  he  has  become  commonplace  are  pleased 
on  that  account ;  and  some  again  hold  that  there  is 
nothing  commonplace  at  all,  nor  heavy,  nor  can  be  in 
anything  that  he  sees  fit  to  write,  but  that  he  has 
become  mellow  and  kindher  than  he  used  to  be,  remain- 
ing the  individual  he  always  was. 

In  this  book  of  twenty  essays  there  are  several  that 
are  obviously  "  characteristic  "  :  they  are  what  the 
critics  of  the  first  category  expected  and  hoped  for.  But 
if  we  read  diligently  between  the  lines  of  the  earlier  work 
we  shall  come  to  see  that  the  same  character  is  in  all  of 
them.  There  is  certainly  nothing  commonplace  in  his 
treatment  of  the  human  emotions.  People  mean  more 
to  him,  one  might  say,  than  they  used  to  ;  things  less. 

83  G  2 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


About  "  things  "  in  this  book  he  does  come  near,  now 
and  again,  to  being — usual.  But  people,  I  think,  have 
always  meant  much  to  him  :  only  as  a  younger  man  he 
did  not  like  to  say  so.  Now  he  is  a  little  less  reserved. 
Young  men  and  women  generally  like  to  appear  much 
harder  than  they  feel — at  least  I  hope  that  is  the 
explanation  of  them.  Even  to  his  humanity — as 
where  he  tells  us  of  the  love  of  kindly  people  for  one 
another  and  his  love  for  them — he  brings  his  own  pecu- 
liar sensitiveness.  And  fine  feelings  are  of  greater 
moment  when  delicately  expressed  than  plain  obser- 
vation, be  it  never  so  acute,  can  ever  be. 

"  I  am  so  glad,"  an  old  friend  of  Max  Beerbohm  said 
after  the  publication  of  And  Even  Now,  "  I  am  so  glad 
that  he  has  at  last  made  a  few  platitudes — the  sort  of 
things  he  used  to  jeer  at  me  for  saying." 

I  knew  what  he  meant  perfectly  well, — only,  of  course, 
they  are  not  platitudes,  but  eternal  verities  very  nicely 
put. 

"  Some  writers,"  Mr.  Beerbohm  himself  said  in  his 
farewell  contribvition  to  the  Saturday  Review,  "  have  a 
dread  of  platitudes.    I  have  not." 

"  Dread  "  is  certainly  rather  a  violent  word,  to  be 
used  only  with  circumspection.  Children  who  do  not 
quite  like  going  to  bed  in  the  dark  may  not  actually 
dread  doing  so  :  but  they  manage  to  avoid  it.  Mr. 
Beerbohm  has  generally  managed  to  avoid  platitude. 

In  the  essay  On  Speaking  French  the  matter  of  what 
he  has  to  say  has  certainly  been  "  used  "  pretty  often. 

"  I  would  recommend  that  every  boy,  on  reaching 
the  age  of  sixteen  should  be  hurled  across  the  Channel 

84 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


into  the  midst  of  some  French  family  and  kept  there  for 
six  months." 

You,  reader  of  the  third  category,  did  not  think  Max 
Beerbohm  capable  of  giving  advice  so  well-worn  as 
that.  I  think  too  that  he  was  well  aware  of  what  he 
was  doing,  but  wanting  to  say  just  that,  nevertheless, 
reUeved  his  feelings  by  humorous  violence  of  expres- 
sion— hurled  across  the  Channel."  He  must  have 
reckoned  up,  half-consciously  maybe,  that  the  school- 
boy exuberance  of  that  word  partly  atoned  for  the 
obviousness  of  the  statem.ent.  To  "  hurl  "  across  the 
channel  is,  after  all,  a  sort  of  euphemism.  That,  again, 
is  immediately  redeemed  by  the  old  manner  : 

"  At  the  end  of  that  time  let  him  be  returned  to  his 
school,  there  to  make  up  for  lost  time.  Time  v/ell  lost, 
though.  .  .  ." 

And  speaking  of  speaking  French  in  Victorian  days 
he  had  already  said  : 

To  speak  French  fluently  and  idiomatically  and  with  a 
good  accent — or  an  idiom  and  accent  which  to  our  rough 
islanders  seemed  good — was  rather  a  suspect  accomplish- 
ment, being  somehow  deemed  incompatible  with  civic 
worth. 

The  essay  How  Shall  I  Word  it  ?  was  in  part  pub- 
lished in  the  Saturday  Review  in  1910,  under  the  title 
The  Complete  Letter-Writer.  It  is,  for  him,  just  in  the 
least  degree  obvious.  Topsy-turveydom  of  any  kind 
seldom  quite  fails  to  amuse  us,  but  the  mere  concoction  of 
well- worded  rude  letters  where  polite  ones  are  expected, 
though  they  are  the  greatest  possible  fun  in  real  life,  in 
an  essay  by  Max  Beerbohm  are  exceptionable. 

85 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


Years  ago,  in  his  essay  on  Ouida,  Mr.  Beerbohni 
referred  to  the  "  dullards  who  think  that  criticism  con- 
sists in  spotting  mistakes."  Nevertheless,  bearing  that 
well  in  mind,  it  is  quite  interesting  to  observe  that  the 
first  line  of  his  first  book  records  one  mistake  while  And 
Even  Now  contains  more  than  one. 

"  How  very  delightful  Grego's  drawings  are  !  "  he 
begins  the  essay  on  Dandies  and  Dandies.  Grego  never 
made  any.  In  Hosts  and  Guests  he  refers  to  the  Palazzo 
Borghese,  using  the  word  as  though,  instead  of  being 
the  over-furnished  "  mansion  "  of  a  rich  burgess,  it  had 
something  to  do  with  the  Borgia  family.  And  if  the 
portrait  of  Goethe  by  Tischbein  hangs  now  in  the 
Museum  at  Frankfort,  to  which  institution  it  was  left 
by  one  of  the  German  Rothschilds  who  bought  it  in 
1840, — the  essay,  Quia  Imperfectum,  in  which  he  tells 
us  that  the  picture  was  lost,  still  remains  a  most  in- 
genious reconstruction  of  a  notable  period  in  the  lives 
of  two  notable  men. 

It  is  in  that  same  essay  that  he  makes  a  distinction 
both  wise  and  witty  between  vanity  and  conceit. 

Such  fame  throughout  Europe  had  Goethe  won  by  his 
works  that  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  travel  incognito. 
Not  that  his  identity  wasn't  an  open  secret,  nor  that  he 
himself  would  have  wished  it  hid.  Great  artists  are  always 
vain.  To  say  that  a  man  is  vain  means  merely  that  he  is 
pleased  with  the  effect  he  produces  on  other  people.  A 
conceited  man  is  satisfied  with  the  effect  he  produces  on 
himself. 

Such  is  the  infirmity  of  human  nature  that  it  is 
seldom  that  a  good  and  conscientious  writer  can  please 

86 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


the  general  reader  on  general  and  personal  grounds. 
Stupid  writers,  or  clever  but  dishonest  ones,  owe  much 
of  their  popularity  to  the  plausible  way  in  which  they 
vindicate  the  nobility  of  their  readers.  Really  virtuous 
people  who,  of  course,  are  not  very  certain  about  their 
virtue  do  like  to  be  assured  in  an  agreeable  and  con- 
vincing way  that  there  is  some  good  in  them  :  and  there 
is  no  villain  so  cynical  but  derives  some  kind  of  inward 
glow  at  discovering  in  a  book  that  he  is  not  such  a  bad 
fellow  after  all. 

So  it  is  with  the  lesser  frailties.  The  reader  of  Mr. 
Beerbohm's  essay,  who  had  been  privately  and 
miserably  conscious  that  he  was  a  conceited  ass, 
suddenly  finds  a  loophole  for  escape  in  the  testimony  of 
an  unimpeachable  witness.  It  is  easy  to  satisfy  yourself 
that  you  are  not  satisfied  merely  with  your  own  self- 
satisfaction. 

On  the  other  hand  Max  Beerbohm  has  a  trick  of 
amusing  spitefulness  directed  against  the  reader  which 
is  capitally  exemplified  in  the  essay  In  Homes  UnblesL 
These  are  the  old  railway  coaches  which  are  carted  down 
to  the  seaside  and,  raised  up  above  the  ground,  are  (as 
he  puts  it)  "  bejezebelled  "  with  paint  and  converted 
into  cottages.  As  an  alternative  he  commends  the  idea 
of  a  caravan. 

"  Think,"  he  says,  "  of  the  white  road  and  the 
shifting  hedgerows,  and  the  counties  that  you  will  soon 
lose  count  of.  And  think  what  a  blessing  it  will  be  for 
you  to  know  that  your  house  is  not  the  one  in  which  the 
Merstham  Tunnel  murder  was  committed." 

I  am  so  glad  that  I  can  make  a  gruesome  and  appro- 
87 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


priate  retort :  for  the  proofs  of  this  book  will  almost 
certainly  be  corrected  in  just  such  a  railway-carriage- 
cottage  as  he  describes,  and  I  am  alarmedly  uncertain 
about  its  origin. 

I  have  a  friend  who  spends  each  winter  on  the 
Riviera  di  Levante,  and  who  has  studied  the  history 
of  that  locality.  What  if  I  could  tell  Mr.  Beerbohm 
that  his  own  house  is  built  upon  the  site  of  the  work- 
shop of  Niccola  of  Zoagli,  nicknamed  "  The  Pock- 
marked," a  noted  manufacturer  in  the  fifteenth  century 
of  racks,  thumb-screws,  and  other  instruments  of 
well-considered  torture  ? 

Again  we  find  a  little  justifiable  flattery  for  the 
reader  in  Hosts  and  Guests.  There  Mr.  Beerbohm 
contends  that  he  is,  by  nature,  himself  a  guest,  and  he 
makes  a  terrible  confession  about  his  own  boyhood  in 
support  of  his  theory. 

In  my  school,  as  in  most  others,  we  received  now  and 
again  '  hampers  '  from  home  ...  It  was  customary  for  the 
receiver  of  a  hamper  to  share  the  contents  with  his  mess- 
mates. On  one  occasion  I  received,  instead  of  the  usual 
variegated  hamper,  a  box  containing  twelve  sausage-rolls. 
It  happened  that  when  this  box  arrived  and  was  opened  by 
me  there  was  no  one  around.  Of  sausage-rolls  I  was  par- 
ticularly fond.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  carried  the  box  up 
to  my  cubicle,  and,  having  eaten  two  of  the  sausage-rolls, 
said  nothing  to  my  friends,  that  day,  about  the  other  ten, 
nor  anything  about  them  when,  three  days  later,  I  had  eaten 
them  all — all,  up  there,  alone. 

Though  the  chance  that  the  story  as  here  related 
may  meet  the  eyes  of  some  of  his  school-fellows  does 
not  trouble  him,  he  is  glad  that  "  there  was  no  collec- 

88 


THE  WRITINGS  OFMAXBEERBOHM 


live  and  contemporary  judgment  by  them  .  .  .  What 
defence  could  I  have  offered  ?  Suppose  I  had  said 
'  You  see,  I  am  so  essentially  a  guest,'  the  plea  would 
have  carried  little  weight." 

And  he  goes  on  to  explain  that  the  plea  was  not 
worthless,  because  "  on  receipt  of  a  hamper,  a  boy  did 
rise,  always,  in  the  esteem  of  his  mess-mates  .  .  .  With 
those  twelve  sausage-rolls,  I  could  have  dominated  my 
fellows  for  a  while.  But  I  had  not  a  dominant  nature 
.  .  .  Having  received  a  hamper,  I  was  always  glad 
when  it  was  finished,  glad  to  fall  back  into  the  ranks." 

And  what  "  essential  guest "  will  fail  to  derive 
comfort  from  Mr.  Beerbohm's  experiences  as  a  host : 

Somewhere  in  the  back  of  my  brain,  while  I  tried  to  lead 
the  conversation  brightly,  was  always  the  haunting  fear 
that  I  had  not  brought  enough  money  in  my  pocket.  I 
never  let  this  fear  master  me.  I  never  said  to  any  one  '  Will 
you  have  a  liqueur  ?  ' — always  '  What  liqueur  v/ill  you 
have  ?  ' 

This  is  not  a  reticent  age,  and  (as  with  the  fauns 
referred  to  by  Max  Beerbohm  in  the  story  of  Malthy 
and  Braxton)  current  literature  suffers  from  no  lack  of 
confession.  Is  it  to  be  regretted  that  the  avowals  of 
the  day  are  of  so  different  a  gauge  as  these  ?  On  the 
whole,  no.  The  pleasures  of  contrast  are  not  to  be 
dispensed  with. 

Perhaps  in  And  Even  Now  there  is  a  little  less  of  that 
inextricability  of  style  and  wit  which  was  so  inherent  a 
quality  in  the  early  books,  but  we  still  find  that  deft 
allusiveness  which  to  the  student  of  Max  Beerbohm 

89 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


is  analogous  to  the  "  skin  "  of  old  mahogany  which  so 
thrills  the  more  materialistic  connoisseur. 

Still  writing  of  Hosts  and  Guests,  Mr.  Beerbohm  shows 
us  that  to  offer  hospitality,  and  to  accept  it 

is  but  an  instinct  which  man  has  acquired  in  the  long  course 
of  self-development.  Lions  do  not  ask  one  another  to  their 
lairs,  nor  do  birds  keep  open  nest.  Certain  wolves  and 
tigers,  it  is  true,  have  been  so  seduced  by  man  from  their 
natural  state  that  they  will  deign  to  accept  man's  hospi- 
tality. But  when  you  give  a  bone  to  your  dog,  does  he  run 
out  and  invite  another  dog  to  share  it  with  him  ? — and  does 
your  cat  insist  on  having  a  circle  of  other  cats  around  her 
saucer  of  milk  ?  Quite  the  contrary  .  .  .  Thousands  of 
years  hence  they  may  have  acquired  some  willingness  to 
share  things  with  their  friends.  Or  rather,  dogs  may ; 
cats,  I  think,  not.  Meanwhile,  let  us  not  be  censorious. 
Though  certain  monkeys  assuredly  were  of  finer  and  more 
malleable  stufi  than  any  wolves  or  tigers,  it  was  a  very  long 
time  indeed  before  even  we  began  to  be  hospitable. 

That  quotation  serves  two  purposes.  The  allusion, 
and  the  workmanship  which  prepares  us  for  it,  are  most 
happy,  and  the  mock-sententiousness  recalls  passages 
of  The  Happy  Hypocrite,  and  even  of  The  Works, 


90 


XII 


Some  sort  of  a  review  of  Max  Beerbohm's  latest 
phase  has  been  intentionally  postponed  till  the  last. 
When  an  author  is  witty — let  us  say,  merely  witty — one 
need  have  no  compunction  in  trying  to  dissect  his 
method.  But  to  pry  into  his  innermost  feelings, 
especially  when  those  feelings,  so  far  as  his  writings  go, 
have  been  bottled  up  for  so  long,  seems,  though  quite 
relevant,  almost  grossly  personal  and  presumptuous. 
And  yet  a  reconnaissance  of  that  nature  is  to  some 
extent  unavoidable  if  we  are  to  see  at  all  the  foreground 
in  the  '  perspective.'  And  with  that  apology  in 
advance,  I  proceed  to  pull  up  a  corner  of  The  Golden 
Drugget. 

This  essay,  though  published  in  Land  and  Water 
during  the  summer  of  1919,  was  written  in  war-time. 
Mr.  Beerbohm  gave  that  name — The  Golden  Drugget — 
to  the  light  which  streams  on  dark  nights  from  the  open 
door  of  a  wayside  inn. 

By  daylight,  on  the  way  down  from  my  little  home  to 
Rapallo,  or  up  from  Rapallo  home,  I  am  indeed  hardly 
conscious  that  this  view  exists.  By  moonlight,  too,  it  is 
negligible.  Stars  are  rather  unbecoming  to  it.  But  on  a 
thoroughly  dark  night,  when  it  is  manifest  as  nothing  but 
a  strip  of  yellow  hght  cast  across  the  road  from  an  ever-open 
door,  great  always  is  its  magic  for  me.  Is  ?  I  mean  was. 
But  then,  I  mean  also  will  he.  And  so  I  cleave  to  the 
present  tense — the  nostalgic  present,  as  grammarians  might 
call  it. 


91 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


And 

There  it  is,  familiar,  serene,  festal.  That  the  pilgrim 
knew  he  would  see  it  in  due  time  does  not  diminish  for  him 
the  queer  joy  of  seeing  it. 

The  first  words  of  the  essay  somewhat  prepare  the 
reader  for  what  is  coming  : 

Primitive  and  essential  things  have  great  power  to  touch 
the  heart  of  the  beholder.  I  mean  such  things  as  a  man 
ploughing  a  field,  or  sowing  or  reaping  ;  a  girl  filling  a 
pitcher  from  a  spring  ;  a  young  mother  with  her  child  ; 
a  fisherman  mending  his  nets  ;  a  light  from  a  lonely  hut  on 
a  dark  nisrht. 

And  then,  before  reverently  approaching  the  Golden 
Drugget  itself,  he  explores  some  of  the  motives  of 
modern  art. 

Brown's  Ode  to  the  Steam  Plough,  Jones'  Sonnet  Sequence 
on  the  Automatic  Reaping  Machine,  and  Robinson's  Epic 
of  the  Piscicidal  Dynamo,  leave  unstirred  the  deeper  depths 
of  emotion  in  us.  The  subjects  chosen  by  these  three  great 
poets  do  not  much  impress  us  when  we  regard  them  sub  specie 
CBternitatis.  Smith  has  painted  nothing  more  masterly  than 
his  picture  of  a  girl  turning  a  hot-water  tap.  But  has  he 
never  seen  a  girl  fill  a  pitcher  from  a  spring  ? 

Before  that  he  had  pointed  out  that 

Nature  is  interesting  only  because  of  us.  And  the  best 
symbols  of  us  are  such  sights  as  I  have  just  mentioned — 
sights  unalterable  by  fashion  of  time  or  place,  sights  that  in 
all  countries  always  were  and  never  will  not  be. 

(In  passing,  I  would  draw  attention  to  the  author's 
effective  use  of  two  negatives — which  in  the  school- 

92 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


room  we  were  taught  to  despise  as  merely  "  making  an 
affirmative.") 

For  a  few  lines,  before  he  comes  to  Brown's  Ode,  he 
wanders  for  a  little  up  a  side-path  of  his  theme— the 
"  materials  which  are  necessary  to  mankind's  present 
pitch  of  glory." 

Is  our  modern  way  of  life  so  great  a  success  that  mankind 
will  surely  never  be  willing  to  let  it  lapse  ?  ...  We  smile 
already  at  the  people  of  the  early  nineteenth  century  who 
thought  that  the  vistas  opened  by  applied  science  were 
very  heavenly.  We  have  travelled  far  along  those  vistas. 
Light  is  not  abundant  in  them,  is  it  ? 

There  is  throughout  this  essay  a  sense,  which  the  most 
careful  readers  of  Max  Beerbohm  had  never  observed 
before,  of  simple  and  definite  distress — the  sadness  of  a 
man  who  has  been,  by  the  chances  of  warfare,  long 
separated  from  his  home. 

"  Is  ?  I  mean  was.  But  then,  I  mean  also  will  hey 
That  was  written  by  some  one  hoping  almost  against 
hope.  But  the  hope  was  fulfilled,  and  now  as  then, 
years  ago,  the  Golden  Drugget  is  spread  across  the 
road. 

"  I  pause  to  bathe  in  the  light  that  is  as  the  span  of 
our  human  life,  granted  between  one  great  darkness  and 
another." 

Besides  a  hint  here  and  there  of  the  more  accessible 
emotions,  of  love  and  kindliness,  of  sheer  joy  and  of 
sadness,  there  is  in  this  book  more  than  one  trace  of  a 
sort  of  dismay — the  consternation  of  the  author, 
springing  less  from  the  actual  trend  of  things  than  from 
an  acknowledged  inability  to  adapt  himself  to  that 

93 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


trend.  He  shrinks,  not,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the 
substitution  of  the  spring  for  the  hot-water  tap,  but 
from  the  uncouth  world  (in  which  no  one  will  want  to 
paint  either  springs  or  hot-water  taps)  which  he  fears 
that  it  is  going  to  be  and  which,  if  logical  development 
can  in  no  wise  be  avoided,  it  will  be. 

The  genuine  pathos,  the  "  honest  sentiment,"  as  we 
say  of  other  people,  grows  deeper  still  in  the  story  of 
William  and  Mary,  not  without,  however,  the  adorn- 
ment and  relief  of  the  old  persisting  sense  of  what  is 
ludicrous.  Mr.  Beerbohm  has  shown  throughout  this 
book  that  he  is  more  than  a  satirist.  He  never  ceases 
to  be,  besides,  in  the  unblemished  sense  of  the  word,  a 
critic. 

There  is  in  W illiam  and  Mary  real  beauty.  And  that 
is  the  best  we  can  ever  say  of  anything.  Amongst  all 
the  words  expressive  of  delight  that  may  be  used  about 
his  written  work,  "  beauty  "  is  not  one  that  can  be 
profusely  exercised.  (His  caricatures  have  a  special 
beauty  of  their  own,  but  from  them  the  uttermost 
significance  of  the  word  must  be  withheld.) 

In  this  story  he  talks,  quietly  and  at  first  amusingly, 
about  an  old  acquaintance  who  became  a  friend.  Still 
in  his  personal  way,  he  represents  William  as  having 
been  up  with  him  at  Oxford — "  I  can  see  him  now 
..."  That  is  a  phrase  that  comes  to  the  tip  of  many 
tongues,  nearly  always  in  regret  for  some  remote  past : 
and  I  cannot  imagine  it  being  used  by  any  one  who  has 
not  somewhere  in  his  heart  a  soft  place. 

Certainly,  you  say,  but  why  make  so  much  of  it  ? 
And  I  answer  that  to  make  much  of  it  is  necessary 

94 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


because  so  much  more  has  been  made  of  Max  Beer- 
bohm's  flippancy,  of  his  wit,  of  his  past  refusal  to  take 
himself  seriously  :  so  many  people  regard  him  still  as 
a  poseur,  and  a  jester, — ^the  critics  especially.  And  as 
has  been  said  they  are  disappointed  with  him  because 
he  has  developed.  The  fact  is  that  critics  (not  only  in 
the  professional  sense)  are  of  two  kinds — those  who 
cannot  bear  to  be  made  to  feel  and  also  cynically  mis- 
trust all  emotion  as  being  "  commonplace  "  ;  and  those 
who  welcome  any  emotion,  however  insipid  or  mawkish, 
provided  that  it  comes  from  the  bottom  of  a  heart  un- 
sullied by  the  smallest  speck  of  discernment.  Mr. 
Beerbohm  is  a  writer  of  very  great  intelligence,  and 
quite  a  large  number  of  people  are  furious  with  him 
because  he  now  turns  out  to  be,  besides,  an  obviously 
sympathetic  writer,  with  human  tendernesses — just  like 
yours  and  mine  ? 

His  culminating  point  as  a  substantial  writer  is  the 
essay,  in  And  Even  Now,  called  No,  2,  The  Pines.  As  a 
small  contribution  to  biography  it  is,  I  think,  rather 
widely  acknowledged  to  stand  alone.  It  is  an  account 
of  the  author's  visits  to  that  solid,  respectable,  Vic- 
torian, comfortable,  matter-of-fact,  unchangeable,  hum- 
drum, sacred  house  at  Putney  where  Swinburne  and 
Watts-Dunton  lived  together. 

Enthusiasm  and  zest  had  not  hitherto  overflowed  in 
Mr.  Beerbohm's  work.  He  had  not,  as  a  rule,  written 
about  things  which  called  for  much  enthusiasm  and 
vigour.  Once  again — "  My  gifts  are  small."  He  had 
been  quiet,  had  not  dealt  in  any  kind  of  violence.  But 
of  Algernon  Swinburne  he  is  an  idolater. 

95 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


Early  in  the  essay  he  suggests  without  defining  his 
own  attitude  to  poetry — "  The  essential  Swinburne," 
he  says,  "  is  still  the  earliest  "  :  and  a  page  later  :  "  Not 
philosophy,  after  all,  not  humanity,  just  sheer  joyous 
power  of  song,  is  the  primal  thing  in  poetry."  And 
when  we  think  of  the  desert  of  verse  in  which  there  is 
no  power,  no  joy,  nothing  sheer  of  any  kind  save  im- 
becility— a  desert  flecked,  certainly,  with  oases,  but  all 
told  dreary  and  barren, — we  do  turn  very  thankfully 
indeed — don't  we  ? — ^to  An  Interlude  and  to  The  Garden 
of  Proserpine. 

But  Max  Beerbohm  is  ever  independent.  He  is  not 
afraid  of  chuckling  at  the  idol's  expense. 

The  Boers,  I  remember,  were  the  theme  of  a  sonnet  which 
embarrassed  even  their  angriest  enemies  in  our  midst.  He 
likened  them,  if  I  remember  rightly,  to  '  hell-hounds  foaming 
at  the  jaws.'  This  was  by  some  people  taken  as  a  sign  that 
he  had  fallen  away  from  that  high  generosity  of  spirit  which 
had  once  been  his.  To  me  it  meant  merely  that  he  thought 
of  poor  little  England  writhing  under  the  heel  of  an  alien 
despotism,  just  as,  in  the  days  when  he  really  was  interested 
in  such  matters,  poor  little  Italy  had  writhen.  I  suspect, 
too,  that  the  first  impulse  to  write  about  the  Boers  came  not 
from  the  Muse  within,  but  from  Theodore  Watts-Dunton 
without  .  .  .  '  Now,  Algernon,  we're  at  war,  you  know,  at 
war  with  the  Boers.  I  don't  want  to  bother  you  at  all,  but 
I  do  think,  my  dear  old  friend,  you  oughtn't  to  let  slip  this 
opportunity  of,'  etc.,  etc. 

And  this  affectionate,  this  gentlest  raillery  seems  to 
us,  wise  after  the  event,  indispensable  to  an  appreciation 
of  the  two  old  friends. 

Watts-Dunton  always  had  "  a  great  deal  of  work  on 
hand  just  now." 


96 


Algernon  Swinburne 


Riverside  Scene. 

taking  his  great  n 
Gabriel  Rossetti." 


FRIEND  GOSSE  TO  SEE 


A  Caricature  by  Max. 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


I  used  to  wonder  what  the  work  was,  Mr.  Beerbohm  tells 
us,  for  he  published  little  enough.  But  I  never  ventured  to 
inquire,  and  indeed  rather  cherished  the  mystery  :  it  was 
a  part  of  the  dear  little  old  man  ;  it  went  with  the  some- 
thing gnome-like  about  his  swarthiness  and  chubbiness— 
went  with  the  shaggy  hair  that  fell  over  the  collar  of  his 
eternally  crumpled  frock-coat,  the  shaggy  eyebrows  that 
overhung  his  bright  little  brown  eyes,  the  shaggy  moustache 
that  hid  his  small  round  chin. 

And  of  his  first  meeting  with  Swinburne  : 

In  shaking  his  hand,  I  bowed  low,  of  course — a  bow 
de  coBur  ;  and  he,  in  the  old  aristocratic  manner,  bowed 
equally  low,  but  with  such  swiftness  that  we  narrowly 
escaped  concussion.  You  do  not  usually  associate  a  man  of 
genius,  when  you  see  one,  with  any  social  class  ;  and, 
Swinburne  being  of  an  aspect  so  unrelated  as  it  was  to  any 
species  of  human  kind,  I  wondered  the  more  that  almost  the 
first  impression  he  made  on  me,  or  would  make  on  any  one, 
was  that  of  a  very  great  gentleman  indeed.  Not  of  an  old 
gentleman,  either.  Sparse  and  straggling  though  the  grey 
hair  was  that  fringed  the  immense  pale  dome  of  his  head, 
and  venerably  haloed  though  he  was  for  me  by  his  greatness, 
there  was  yet  about  him  something — boyish  ?  girlish  ? 
childish,  rather  ;  something  of  a  beautifully  well-bred  child. 
But  he  had  the  eyes  of  a  god,  and  the  smile  of  an  elf. 

It  is  that  bewitching  childishness  which  is  so  engag- 
ingly caught  in  the  caricature  of  the  poet  drawing  Mr. 
Gosse  by  the  hand  to  see  Rossetti.  We  can  see  in  it,  so 
far  as  the  limits  of  a  small  reproduction  will  allow,  the 
very  movement  of  a  child,  the  irrepressibility,  the 
straining  eagerness  to  hurry, — ^though  we  cannot  see 
the  flood  of  auburn  hair  which,  in  strong  relief  from 
dimmer  colours,  makes  the  whole  picture  so  enjoyable. 

97  H 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


In  the  essay  it  is  the  homehness,  the — seeming — 
ordinariness  of  Mr.  Beerbohm's  description  which 
succeeds  better  than  any  fervent  panegyric. 

He  smiled  only  to  himself,  and  to  his  plateful  of  meat, 
and  to  the  small  bottle  of  Bass's  pale  ale  that  stood  before 
him — ultimate  allowance  of  one  who  had  erst  clashed 
cymbals  in  Naxos.  This  small  bottle  he  eyed  often  and 
with  enthusiasm,  seeming  to  waver  between  the  rapture  of 
broaching  it  now  and  the  grandeur  of  having  it  to  look 
forward  to. 

And  later,  when  he  had  believed  Watts-Dunton 
selfish  in  not  drawing  Swinburne  sooner  into  the  con- 
versation, he  found  that 

It  was  simply  a  sign  of  the  care  with  which  he  watched 
over  his  friend's  welfare.  Had  Swinburne  been  admitted 
earher  to  the  talk,  he  would  not  have  taken  his  proper 
quantity  of  roast  mutton. 

And  of  his  own  part  he  tells  us  : 

"  To  him  the  writings  of  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  were  as 
fresh  as  paint — as  fresh  as  to  me,  alas,  was  the  news  of 
their  survival." 

Then  there  is  another  dehghtful  confession.  Max 
Beerbohm  was  ashamed,  in  Swinburne's  library,  of 
shaking  his  head  every  time  his  illustrious  host  asked 
if  he  had  read  some  early  play. 

"  I  quibbled,  I  evaded,  I  was  very  enthusiastic  and 
uncomfortable." 

At  last  Swinburne  laid  before  him  a  book  whose  title 
he  thought  he  recognised. 

"  '  This  of  course  I  have  read,'  I  heartily  shouted," 
98 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  MAX  BEERBOHM 


But  that  turned  out  to  be  a  book  the  only  copy  of  which 
Swinburne  fondly  believed  to  be  his. 

"  '  Theodore  !  Do  you  hear  this  ?  It  seems  that 
they  have  now  a  copy  of  The  Country  Wench  in  the 
Bodleian.  .  .  .  They  might  have  told  me,'  he  wailed." 

"  I  sacrificed  myself,"  Mr.  Beerbohm  owns,  "  on  the 
altar  of  sympathy." 

But,  since  quotations  from  No.  2,  The  Pines,  speak 
so  eloquently  for  themselves,  I  shall  fear,  if  I  make  any 
more,  "  by  dithyrambs,  to  hasten  the  reaction  of  critics 
against "  the  author. 

It  remains  only  to  be  said  that  the  end  of  this  essay 
(where  Mr.  Beerbohm  invents  a  conversation  between 
Watts-Dunton  and  himself  in  Elysium— a  conversation 
built  up  with  all  his  skill  in  parody,  all  his  sympathy 
and  insight)— the  end  of  this  essay  touches  the  heights 
of  imaginative  writing,  with  a  union  of  extremes  which 
only  a  few  can  fully  understand  and  fewer  still  attain, 
—the  perfect  blending  of  laughter  and  of  tears. 


99 


PART  II 


PART  II 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 
I 

In  England  caricature  is  little  understood,  and  there 
are  very  few  caricaturists  :  and  to  decide  which  of  these 
is  cause  and  which  effect  is  extremely  difficult.  What 
is  caricature  ?  We  will  begin  by  trying  to  discover 
what,  in  England,  it  is  generally  supposed  to  be. 
Walker,  Webster,  and  the  general  public  regard  it  as 
"  a  ludicrous  representation."  It  is  surely  more  than 
that. 

Let  us,  then,  go  back  a  little.  Horace,  for  example, 
evidently  had  some  conception  of  the  same  nature  when 
he  talks  of  vultum  alicujus  in  pejus  fingere,  whilst  the 
ingenious  authors  of  an  old  English-Latin  dictionary 
in  my  possession  (but  the  title-page  is  missing,  and  there 
is  nothing  to  tell  me  who  the  lexicographers  were), 
suggest  that  "  caricaturist "  may  be  rendered  by 
"  gryllorum  pictor  " — a  painter  of  comic  figures.  And 
here,  incidentally,  we  trace  a  derivation  from  the  Greek 
ypvAXos  or  ypvXo<;  (ypv—a  grunt) — a  pig,  porker— the 
vehicle  of  insult  throughout  the  ages.  Horace's  idea 
of  putting  the  worser  construction  on  any  one's  face 
usually  *fits  the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  but  it  is  too 

103 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


narrow.  The  true  caricaturist,  though  he  no  doubt 
more  readily  seizes  an  advantage  unfavourable  to  his 
victim,  should  and  occasionally  does  make  the  most  of  a 
seraphic  smile  or  a  beautifully  cut  coat. 

Murray  tells  us  only  a  little  more  ;  namely,  that 
caricature  is  an  Italian  word  (as  is  natural,  for  Italy  was 
the  birthplace  of  the  art)  and  was  used  as  such  by  Sir 
T.  Browne,  who  in  1690  wrote  to  a  friend — "  When 
men's  faces  are  drawn  with  resemblance  to  some  other 
animals  the  Italians  call  it,  to  be  drawn  in  caricatura." 
And  that  immediately  recalls  a  drawing  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone as  a  watch-dog,  or  Abdul  Hamid  as  a  tiger  or  a 
snake  or  an  elephant  (it  matters  little),  or  Queen  Anne 
as  a  dodo,  and  these  are  not  at  all  what  I  think  of  as 
caricatures.  The  subtle  brain  concocts  a  drawing  of — 
say — Abdul  Hamid,  not  with  a  plain  elephant's  body, 
but  as  a  man  who  has,  plainly  enough  to  the  discerning 
eye,  elephantine  qualities — always  supposing  that  the 
caricaturist  perceived  these  qualities  in  his  subject. 

A  century  after  Browne,  Goldsmith,  in  She  Stoops  to 
Conquer,  says  :  "I  shall  be  stuck  up  in  caricatura  in  all 
the  print  shops."  But  earlier  than  that  we  get  a  much 
more  satisfactory  account  from  a  letter  to  the  Spectator, 
dated  November  15th,  1712,  contributed  by  Hughes, 
on  The  Dignity  of  Human  Nature.  There  he  quotes 
Pascal :  "It  is  of  dangerous  consequence  to  represent 
to  man  how  near  he  is  to  the  level  of  the  beasts,  without 
showing  him  at  the  same  time  his  greatness.  It  is 
likewise  dangerous  to  let  him  see  his  greatness  without 
his  meanness.  It  is  more  dangerous  yet  to  leave  him 
ignorant  of  either ;  but  very  beneficial  that  he  should  be 

104 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 

made  sensible  of  both."  Hughes  had  been  talking  of 
partiality  in  the  judgment  of  human  nature,  giving 
as  instances  politicians,  who  "  can  resolve  the  most 
shining  actions  among  men  into  artifice  and  design  "  ; 
and  satirists  who  "  describe  nothing  but  deformity." 
"  From  all  these  hands,"  he  goes  on,  "  we  have  such 
draughts  of  mankind,  as  are  represented  in  those 
burlesque  pictures  which  the  Italians  call  caricaturas  ; 
where  the  art  consists  in  preserving,  amidst  distorted 
proportions  and  aggravated  features,  some  distin- 
guishing likeness  of  the  person,  but  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  transform  the  most  agreeable  beauty  into  the 
most  odious  monster." 

Returning  to  Murray  we  find  that  Caricature  in  Art, 
used  now  as  an  English  word,  is  a  "  Grotesque  and 
ludicrous  representation  of  persons  or  things  by 
exaggeration  of  their  most  characteristic  or  striking 
features,"  or  again,  "  A  portrait  or  other  artistic  repre- 
sentation, in  which  the  characteristic  features  of  the 
original  are  exaggerated  with  ludicrous  effect." 

Sydney  Smith  used  the  word  in  our  modern  sense,  and 
Macaulay  in  the  essay,  written  in  1827,  on  Machiavelli, 
says  that  it  is  "  not  certain  that  the  best  histories  are 
not  those  in  which  a  little  of  the  exaggeration  of  ficti- 
tious narrative  is  judiciously  employed  "  just  as  "  the 
best  portraits  are  perhaps  those  in  which  there  is  a 
slight  mixture  of  caricature " — which  seems  to  be 
another  way  of  saying  that  since  for  human  intelligence 
no  truth  is  absolute,  we  do  better  in  trusting  a  little 
to  our  intuitive  faculties  rather  than  in  representing 
cold  "  fact  "  as  our  senses  seem  to  tell  it  to  us. 

105 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


We  turn  now  to  our  own  periodicals,  and  we  find  that 
what  are  commonly  called  cartoons  and  caricatures 
are  in  the  popular  imagination  interchangeable  terms. 
Any  representation  of  a  group  of  individuals,  whether 
actual  or  imaginary,  whether  for  polemic  or  political  or 
merely  humorous  intention  is  liable  to  be  called  a 
"  cartoon,"  whilst  the  tendency  is  to  describe  any 
"  ludicrous  representation  "  of  a  single  person  as  a 
"  caricature."  For  this  purpose  the  public  generally 
demands  a  little  body  and  a  large  head,  which  shall  be 
as  nearly  as  possible  a  portrait  with  some  laughable 
quality  about  it.  How  many  "  caricatures  "  have  we 
seen,  for  instance,  of  the  late  President  Roosevelt  with 
that  huge  conventional  head  ?  Max,  on  the  other  hand, 
drew  him  with  a  mountainous  body,  with  stupendous 
hands,  and — a  tiny  head.  For  that  was,  so  to  put  it, 
the  gist  of  him  to  Max.  Certainly  he  has  drawn  far 
more  people  with  big  heads  and  little  bodies,  but  then 
he  has  more  often  chosen  people  who  in  life  have  big 
heads. 

A  large  number  of  daily  and  other  papers  supply 
drawings  of  the  big-headed  type,  because  there  is  a 
superstition — it  may  be  more  than  that — which  impels 
editors  to  believe  that  in  order  to  rub  in  some  social 
or  political  point  you  must  be  funny,  and  a  further 
superstition  has  it  that  little  bodies  with  big  heads  are 
excruciatingly  funny.  Does  it  follow,  however,  that 
in  order  to  be  funny  you  must  also  be  vulgar  ?  When 
we  think  of  the  popular  cartooning  of  the  day,  we  find 
such  unmitigated  vulgarity,  in  idea  or  in  representation, 
such  cheapness,  that  we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion 

107 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


that  we  are  a  very  vulgar  people.  Of  course,  not  every- 
one is  expected  to  enjoy  the  inspired  subtleties  of  Max, 
but  is  there  no  mean  between  them  and  the  banalities 
of  Asterisk  and  Asterisky  ?  We  seldom  find  that  mean, 
at  all  events.  Some  vulgarity  is  exceedingly  funny,  no 
doubt  :  but  the  combination  rarely  finds  expression  in 
English  caricature. 

To  return  for  a  little  while  to  the  authorities,  Monsieur 
Henri  Bergson  has  deliberately  written  on  the  subject, 
and  Mr.  Roger  Fry  may  be  misrepresented  as  having 
done  so. 

However  regular  we  may  imagine  a  face  to  be,  writes 
M.  Bergson,*  however  harmonious  its  lines  and  supple  its 
movements,  their  adjustment  is  never  altogether  perfect : 
there  will  always  be  discoverable  the  signs  of  some  impend- 
ing bias,  the  vague  suggestion  of  a  possible  grimace,  in  short 
some  favourite  distortion  towards  which  Nature  seems  to 
be  particularly  inclined.  The  art  of  the  caricaturist  con- 
sists in  detecting  this,  at  times,  imperceptible  tendency,  and 
in  rendering  it  visible  to  all  eyes  by  magnifying  it.  He 
makes  his  models  grimace,  as  they  would  do  themselves  if 
they  went  to  the  end  of  their  tether.  Beneath  the  skin-deep 
harmony  of  form,  he  divines  the  deep-seated  recalcitrance 
of  matter.  He  realizes  disproportions  and  deformations 
which  must  have  existed  in  nature  as  mere  inclinations,  but 
which  have  not  succeeded  in  coming  to  a  head,  being  held 
in  check  by  a  higher  force.  This  art,  which  has  a  touch  of 
the  diabolical,  raises  up  the  demon  who  had  been  over- 
thrown by  the  angel.  Certainly,  it  is  an  art  that  exag- 
gerates, and  yet  the  definition  would  be  very  far  from 
complete  were  exaggeration  alone  alleged  to  be  its  aim  and 
object,  for  there  exist  caricatures  that  are  more  lifelike  than 

*  Laughter :  an  essay  on  the  meaning  of  the  Comic.  Authorised 
translation  by  Cloudesley  Brereton  and  Fred  Rothwell. 

108 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


portraits,  caricatures  in  which  the  exaggeration  is  scarcely 
noticeable,  whilst,  inversely,  it  is  quite  possible  to  exag- 
gerate to  excess  without  obtaining  a  real  caricature. 

Here  at  last  we  are  beginning  to  arrive  at  a  true  con- 
ception of  this  very  subtle  art.  But  though  M.  Bergson 
obviously,  at  the  back  of  his  mind,  when  writing  those 
last  sentences,  apprehended  what  I  may  call  spiritual 
caricature,  he  does  not  mention  it  in  so  many  words. 
Just  as  good  parody  does  not  consist  merely  in  ludicrous 
exaggeration  of  manner,  but  in  the  choice  of  subject 
and  the  potential  method  of  treatment,  so  good  carica- 
ture besides  exaggerating  manifest  physical  peculiarities, 
dips  also  into  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  individual  and 
renders  him  not  as  he  commonly  appears  or,  even,  has 
ever  appeared  but  as,  under  given  (and,  again,  exag- 
gerated) circumstances  he  would  appear.  That  is  one 
thing  the  public  (from  which,  once  more,  present  com- 
pany is  rigidly  excepted)  do  not  fully  appreciate.  They 
do  not,  as  a  rule,  laugh  with  Max,  but  at  him.  He 
draws  a  man,  let  us  say,  with  goggle-eyes,  and  the  public 
laughs,  because  the  exaggeration  is  very  funny  indeed. 
If  the  man  is  well  known  by  sight,  the  most  literal  of  the 
spectators  are  apt  to  say,  "  Oh,  but  he  hasn't  really  got 
eyes  like  that  "  :  and  the  slightly  less  literal  will  say 
the  same,  adding  that  by  no  caricaturish  licence  should 
his  eyes  be  made  to  goggle  so  much.  But  those 
who  personally  know  the  subject  understand  that  his 
eyes  are  made  to  goggle  not  necessarily  in  exaggeration 
of  physical  appearances,  but  to  indicate  a  potential 
appearance,  and  intensity,  or  greed,  or  fear,  or  earnest- 
ness— whichever  quahty  (or  whatever  other  quality 

109 


I 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 

ostensible  in  goggle-eyes)  is  to  be  found  in  the  victim's 
spiritual  composition.  Mr.  Raven-Hill,  the  Punch 
cartoonist,  contributed  a  preface  to  Caricatures  of 
Twenty-five  Gentlemen,  Max's  first  book  of  drawings, 
where  he  observes  (in  a  manner  faintly  reminiscent  of 
Max  himself)  :  "  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  every- 
body can  understand  and  enjoy  caricatures  more  easily 
than  any  other  sort  of  art.  When  I  was  assisting  in  the 
management  of  a  periodical  to  which  Max  was  con- 
tributing a  series  of  caricatures,  we  used  to  get  letters 
from  people  all  over  the  country,  pointing  out  that  Mr. 
Blank  was  not  half  so  fat,  or  Lord  Dash  not  half  so 
bald  as  Max  had  made  him,  or  Mr.  Blank-Dash  hadn't 
got  legs  like  pins.  Max's  caricatures  are  difficult  to  the 
public  at  large,  partly  because  the  public  is  not  accus- 
tomed to  seeing  real  caricatures,  and  partly  because,  in 
many  cases,  it  is  not  well  acquainted  with  the  person 
caricatured.  I  do  not  know  if  Max  knows  his  people 
well,  but  I  have  invariably  found  that  a  caricature  of 
his  that  has  not  greatly  struck  me  at  first,  has  always 
become  marvellous  in  resemblance  as  I  have  known  the 
subject  of  it  better." 

There  is  indeed  no  question  of  "  high-brow  "  appre- 
ciation :  it  is  chiefly  a  matter  of  close  observation,  so 
far  as  the  spectator  is  concerned. 

Mr.  Roger  Fry,  who  has  been  dealt  with  at  least  twice 
by  Max,  and  who  collected  his  most  stimulating  and 
delightfully  written  essays  in  a  book,  Vision  and  Design, 
is,  of  course,  a  writer  upon  serious  art,  and  if  we  may 
include  caricature  for  a  moment  in  that  portentous 
category,  we  may  find  Mr.  Fry  helpful.    In  the  first 

110 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


place  he  luminously  points  out  how  such  painters  as 
Monet  raised  a  fury  of  indignation  in  the  public  breast 
on  account  of  what  was  regarded  as  their  "  audacious 
humbug,"  when  all  the  time  they  had  a  truly  profound 
knowledge  of  nature  and  the  power  of  using  that  know- 
ledge in  all  sincerity.  Mr.  Fry  tells  us  that  ordinary 
people  have  "  no  idea  of  what  things  really  look  like," 
because  they  are  so  accustomed  to  observing  only  those 
objects  which,  for  the  practical  purposes  of  life,  it  is 
necessary  for  them  to  observe. 

The  artist's  attitude  to  natural  form,  he  says  in  An  Essay 
in  Esthetics,  is  .  .  .  infinitely  various  according  to  the 
emotions  he  wishes  to  arouse.  He  may  require  for  his 
purpose  the  most  complete  representation  of  a  figure,  he 
may  be  intensely  realistic,  provided  that  his  presentment, 
in  spite  of  its  closeness  to  natural  appearance,  disengages 
clearly  for  us  the  appropriate  emotional  elements.  Or  he 
may  give  us  the  merest  suggestion  of  natural  forms,  and  rely 
almost  entirely  upon  the  force  and  intensity  of  the  emotional 
elements  involved  in  his  presentment. 

We  may,  then,  dispense  once  for  all  with  the  idea  of  like- 
ness to  Nature,  of  correctness  or  incorrectness  as  a  test,  and 
consider  only  whether  the  emotional  elements  inherent  in 
natural  form  are  adequately  discovered,  unless,  indeed,  the 
emotional  idea  depends  at  any  point  upon  likeness,  or 
completeness  of  representation. 

And  again : 

With  the  new  indifference  to  representation  we  have 
become  much  less  interested  in  skill  and  not  at  all  interested 
in  knowledge.  We  are  thus  no  longer  cut  off  from  a  great 
deal  of  barbaric  and  primitive  art  the  very  meaning  of  which 
escaped  the  understanding  of  those  who  demanded  a  certain 
standard  of  skill  in  representation  before  they  could  give 
serious  consideration  to  a  work  of  art. 


Ill 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


Now  the  true  caricaturist  never  troubles  himself  at 
all  about  the  test  of  correctness  in  that  sense,  though 
skill  matters  to  him  very  greatly.  Whether  the  skill 
of  the  caricaturist  is  skill  in  a  different  meaning  of  the 
word  than  that  which  we  associate  with  "  serious  "  art 
is  a  matter  for  Mr.  Fry  and  other  artist-critics  to  decide. 
A  caricature  must  be  in  part  representative,  or  else  it 
would  have  no  point  for  us.  But  it  need  not  be  so 
obvious  a  likeness  that  a  descriptive  label  can  be  dis- 
pensed with.  For  many  admirable  caricatures  are  not 
good  physical  likenesses.  If  we  know  the  subject 
intimately,  if  he  is  a  personal  friend  or  enemy,  whose 
affectations  and  insincerities,  inherent  gloominess  or 
joviality  of  outlook,  goodness,  badness,  sense  of  duty, 
recklessness,  or  what  not  are,  from  us,  no  secrets,  then 
we  shall  recognise  him  in  a  caricature  which  has  but  a 
particle  of  physical  resemblance.  But  if  we  have  only 
a  quite  general  knowledge,  at  second  hand,  of  his  quali- 
ties or  defects,  the  same  caricature  will  still  give  us  keen 
enjoyment.  We  say  to  ourselves  :  "  Who  is  it,  now, 
who  has  that  cold  fish-like  stare  at  nothing  in  particular 
and  the  world  at  large  ?  "  And  we  look  in  the  catalogue, 
and  when  we  see  the  name  we  curse  our  dullness  ;  for 
the  inevitability  of  the  caricature,  once  we  have  the 
clue  of  identity,  becomes  at  once  apparent.  This  is  not 
merely  being  "  wise  after  the  event "  ;  for  we  really  do 
see  merits  in  the  drawing  then,  which  necessarily  elude 
us  until  our  memories  have  been  stirred  in  the  necessary 
direction. 

The  French  caricaturist,  "  Sem,"  has  a  peculiar  gift 
in  that  his  intuition  in  regard  to  subjects  whom  he  has 

112 


"This  is  my  Receipt  for  Max." 
A  Caricature  by  William  Nicholson. 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


never  seen  before  enables  him  to  produce  excellent 
caricatures  at  first  sight,  and  more  than  merely  physical 
caricatures  at  that.  On  one  occasion  he  was  taken  to 
Newmarket  by  an  English  friend,  where,  on  the  course, 
he  made  numerous  lightning  caricatures  of  people  he  had 
never  seen  before,  the  names  being  easily  supplied  by 
people  who  recognised  the  drawings  at  the  end  of  the 
day. 

Max,  on  the  other  hand,  very  seldom  draws  from  life, 
and  the  result  when  he  does  is  generally  disastrous. 
His  usual  method  is  to  study  the  victim  when  he  is 
talking  to  him,  or  at  any  rate  in  the  same  room,  and  to 
go  home  and  make  the  caricature  which  necessarily 
consists  of  the  salient  features  (or  lack  of  them)  which 
have  been  retained  in  his  memory.  It  follows  then, 
that  people  whom  he  has  met  but  casually  are  very 
often  best  represented.  Of  people  whom  he  knows 
with  very  great  intimacy  he  is  apt  to  make  portraits 
rather  than  caricatures,  for,  knowing  them,  he  accu- 
rately describes  those  details  of  their  appearance  which 
are  not  paramount. 

As  said  already,  the  real  art  of  caricature  is  extra- 
ordinarily rare  :  and  in  England  especially,  we  look 
about  us  and  we  find  that  the  genuine  caricaturists, 
whose  work  we  know,  can  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of 
one  hand — and  then,  after  reflection,  we  shall  have  to 
reckon  again,  and  drastically  correct  that  tale. 

Virtually,  Max  stands  alone.  Certainly  there  are  no 
other  caricaturists  of  any  kind  outside  quotation  marks 
who  are  not  indebted  to  him.  This  is  said  deliberately 
and  in  no  spirit  of  ingratitude,  for  instance,  to  Mr. 

M.B.P.  113  I 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


Nicholson  who  has  with  great  kindness  given  me  his 
"  receipt  "  for  Max  :  but  Mr.  Nicholson  only  carica- 
tures people  now  and  again  in  all  lightness  of  heart. 
Caricature  with  him  is  merely  relaxation  from  serious 
work — a  joke.  And  that  applies  to  many  others,  not 
only  professing  artists.  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
drawing  by  Mr.  Nicholson  is  a  convention — or,  as  he 
puts  it,  a  receipt — rather  than  a  caricature,  A  true 
caricature  is  always  an  interpretation  ;  it  is  very  often 
an  indictment.  Mr.  Nicholson's  drawing,  consisting, 
as  will  be  seen,  mainly  of  eyes,  does  hit  off  the  victim 
in  a  way  that,  while  it  makes  no  comment,  yet 
vigorously  suggests  him. 

Indeed  that  part  of  the  public  which  really  admires 
good  caricature,  gnashes  its  teeth  in  the  knowledge, 
vague  though  it  may  be,  that  some  of  the  best  work  of 
that  nature  has  been  relegated  to  the  comparative  ob- 
livion of  private  and  familiar  circulation.  And  Max 
himself  has  made  many  drawings  (even  of  general  in- 
terest) which  have  never  been  seen  by  the  public.  And 
through  the  kindness  of  friends  I  am  able  to  reproduce 
here  drawings  by  Max  which  have  never  been  seen,  at 
large,  before. 


114 


II 


Among  the  illustrations  in  this  book  will  be  found  a 
page  of  rough  and  rather  uncouth  pen  and  ink  sketches 
by  Max  representing  himself  as  he  rather  thought  he 
was  going  to  be.  These  drawings  were  made  when  he 
was  a  boy  of  fifteen,  and  though  there  is  in  them  no 
special  merit,  we  do  get  just  the  very  lightest  shadow 
of  coming  events,  so  far  as  the  method  of  workmanship 
is  concerned.  Whether  he  meant  to  portray  himself 
as  an  elderly  man,  as  he  is  seen  in  these  drawings,  I 
don't  know.  Probably  not.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
persistent  faults  in  a  beginner  to  draw  faces  which 
appear  old  when  they  are  meant  to  be  young. 

Here  we  see  him  "  at  the  Bar  "  (it  will  be  remembered 
that  he  was  once  going  to  be  a  lawyer),  "  at  Oxford," 
"  drawing,"  "  walking  "  (possibly  with  his  big  brother), 
and  "  at  the  Hay  market  "  (no  doubt  watching  the  big 
brother  on  the  stage).  The  large  central  head  is  the 
most  grievous  libel :  for  at  no  time  of  his  life  were  his 
cheeks  pendulous  and  flaccid  as  they  are  here,  never  did 
he  lack  chin  :  and  its — so  to  speak — double  absence  here 
is  painfully  felt.  The  reader's  attention  is,  however, 
called  to  the  heavy  and  unfaltering  line  of  the  profile 
in  this  central  sketch,  and  the  perfect  curve  of  the 
collar.    Just  by  themselves  these  are  trivialities,  but 

115  I  2 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


as  a  forecast  of  what  was  to  come  they  are  significant 
and  interesting.  His  handwTiting  then  was,  by  the 
way,  virtually  the  same  as  it  is  now. 

Most  small  children  make  drawings,  but  that  form  of 
amusement  and  expression  is  much  less  common  amongst 
boys  of  fifteen  ;  and  in  them  it  usually  bespeaks  some 
persisting  need,  possibly  some  talent.  Drawing,  then, 
and  especially  caricaturing,  appealed  very  strongly  to 
Max  from  the  earliest  days,  long  before  he  thought  of 
writing  ;  and  drawing  as  an  occupation  still  comes  first 
in  his  affection.  To  this  day  there  is  in  him  nothing 
"  professional  "  so  far  as  drawing  is  concerned.  He 
draws  as  a  child  does — for  the  fun  of  the  thing.  I 
said  before  that,  with  Max,  caricature  is  the  same 
thing  as  the  writing  of  essays,  and  so  in  its  result  it  is, 
but  the  actual  work  involved  in  drawing  is  infinitely 
more  enjoyable.  It  comes  easier  to  him :  every 
moment  with  a  pencil  or  paint  box  is  a  pleasure  to  him. 
Not  unrelievedly  so,  as  we  have  seen,  are  the  longer 
hours  spent  in  writing.  And  so,  of  course,  the  total 
amount  of  his  drawings  is,  if  I  may  try  and  measure  in 
relation  two  irrelative  and  incommensurable  quanti- 
ties, much  greater  than  the  total  amount  of  his  writings. 

Max's  first  public  appearance  as  a  caricaturist  took 
place  much  earlier  than  is  generally  supposed.  It 
would  be  immensely  interesting  to  know  how  many 
readers  of  the  Strand  Magazine  in  its  second  year, 
thrilled  as  they  were  by  the  "  Stories  from  the  Diary  of 
a  Doctor,"  ardent  followers  of  the  bland  if  then  youth- 
ful stupidities  of  Watson  and  the  equally  bland  assur- 
ance of  Sherlock  Holmes,  noticed  in  the  September, 

116 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


November,  and  December  mimbers  of  1892  some  pages 
of  "  Club  Types,"  drawn  by  H.  Maxwell  Beerbohm  ? 
There  were  in  all  thirty-six  of  these  Types,  reproduced 
very  small,  and  though  in  those  days  they  must  have 
been  regarded  just  as  amusing  little  pictures,  quite 
cleverly  symbolising  the  clubs  named,  one  would  like 
to  know  if  there  was  then  any  one  with  the  perspicacity 
to  realise  what  these  little  drawings  actually  were  ? 
It  is  to  be  presumed  that  they  were  not  caricatures  of 
actual  people  :  it  is  not  too  great  a  presumption  to  trace 
in  them  and  in  much  of  Max's  work  thereafter  the 
influence  of  Pellegrini — "  Ape  "  of  Vanity  Fair. 

In  these  drawings  the  diverse  types  are  well  sized  up. 
There  is  the  glossy  and  important  stateliness  of  the 
Marlborough,  the  pinnacle  of  tired  refinement  for  the 
Savile ;  for  the  Bachelors'  there  is  a  slim  young  man 
rather  like  the  artist;  while  the  Union  is  represented 
by  a  respectable  old  buffer  not  unlike  the  Anthony 
Trollope  done  by  "  Spy "  in  1873,  though  not  like 
enough  to  dismiss  the  probability  of  a  chance  resemb- 
lance. (Not  that  there  is  anything  heinous  in  showing 
the  influence  of  another  man  :  it  is  but  conscious  or 
unconscious  homage.)  At  that  time  Max  was  fond  of 
drawing  shiny  top-hats  with  precise  radiations  or 
parallels  of  black  and  white.  The  member  of  the 
Senior  United  Service  Club  is  an  old  man  with  very 
dark,  resplendent  hair,  a  very  curly  moustache,  drooping 
somewhat,  a  vividly  hooked  nose  and  a  good  deal  of 
"  cut  "  about  the  frock-coat.  Here,  and  whenever  he 
could  do  so  plausibly,  he  introduced,  as  he  did  ever 
afterwards  and  does  now  (when  they  are  out  of  fashion) 

117 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


high  histrous  collars  and  water-fall  ties  (to  use  the  least 
fanciful  of  its  many  fancy  names).  I  should  imagine 
that  the  reason  for  his  persisting  fondness  for  that  kind 
of  necktie  is  two-fold :  it  gives  him  an  excellent 
opportunity  for  drawing  sleek  and  flowing  curves,  with 
the  richly  shaded  splendour  of  satin  ;  and,  moreover,  a 
tie  of  that  denomination  with  an  appropriate  pin  seems 
to  be,  under  Max's  hand,  an  unmistakable  emblem 
of  prosperity.  The  rich  and  comfortable  in  his  carica- 
tures, whether  actual  or  typical,  almost  always  have 
these  ties. 

In  the  January  number  of  the  Strand,  in  1895,  there 
appeared  an  article  by  Mr.  Harold  George  on  "  Oxford 
at  Home,"  illustrated  by  Max.  These  again  are  types 
and  not,  ostensibly,  individuals.  They  are  unsigned, 
though  their  authorship  is  acknowledged  in  the  index. 
But  they  need  no  signature  now,  for  they  are,  as  you 
might  say,  signed  all  over ;  just  as,  though  in  a  lesser 
degree,  the  club  types  were  three  years  before.  Max 
formed  a  definite  style  of  his  own  almost  at  the  be- 
ginning, and  to  that  earliest  style  the  manner  of  nearly 
all  his  mature  work  is  traceable. 

Of  these  Oxford  drawings  "  a  member  of  the  Bulling- 
don  "  is  an  admirably  conventionalised  horsey  man, 
though  the  choice  of  subjects,  or  rather  the  arrangement 
of  them  is  conventional  in  its  less  pleasing  sense. 
"  Dons  :  old  School,  new  School  "  ;  a  gorgeous  youth 
vaulting  out  of  a  champagne  glass — "  Blood,"  juxta- 
posed to  a  dowdy  one  supported  by  an  open  lexicon — • 
"  Smug  " — are  the  sort  of  ideas  which  are — or  at  least 
were  then — fairly  usual.    But  the  actual  drawing  of 

118 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


these  dons,  and  "  The  Lady  Novehsts'  Ideal "  are  not 
usual,  but  original ;  and,  as  one  still  hears  said  occa- 
sionally of  sermons  and  essays — "  thoughtful." 

During  part  of  1894  and  1895  Max  was  a  regular 
contributor  of  caricatures  to  Pick-me-up,  But  some 
of  these  suffer,  as  did  some  of  his  dramatic  criticisms  in 
the  Saturday,  from  that  very  regularity,  because  they 
had  to  be  done.  I  don't  know,  but  it  is  more  than 
likely  that  the  choice  of  subjects  did  not  always  rest 
with  the  artist.  That  is  the  worst  (well — not  the  worst, 
but  the  worst  in  that  sense)  of  the  Press — even  the  best 
of  it  is  interested  in  all  sorts  of  people  who  could  by  no 
possibility  raise  a  single  flicker  of  inspiration  in  an 
intelligent  caricaturist.  This  is  an  arrow  at  a  venture, 
but  some  of  the  Pick-me-up  caricatures  were  quite  poor 
and  that  is  probably  the  reason.  When  he  came  to 
draw  people  whom  he  would  have  chosen,  even  if  in  fact 
he  didn't, — Lord  Lonsdale,  W.  S.  Gilbert,  Oscar  Wilde, 
and  others — ^the  difference  is  very  plain.  Lord  Lons- 
dale, especially,  is  most  searchingly  perceived.  Wilde 
he  has  caricatured  many  times,  without  much  variation  ; 
and  Max  has  made  the  most  of  his  peculiar  hands.  The 
fingers  were  extremely  pointed,  the  thumb  curved 
sharply  back  like  a  claw  in  reverse.  The  whole  effect 
in  the  caricatures  of  this  hand  is  that  of  a  kind  of  crab, 
the  elaborately  jewelled  ring  being  its  eye. 

Amongst  others  caricatured  in  Pick-me-up  were 
R.  G.  Knowles,  the  comedian,  who  has  no  face  and  is  all 
costume,  Paderewski  and  Richard  le  Gallienne  (rather 
too  easily)  all  hair  and  no  face,  Corney  Grain,  in,  of 
course,  enormous  bulk,  and — a.  rare  thing,  for  Max 

119 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


hardly  ever  made  drawings  of  women — Miss  Ada 
Reeve,  looking  the  incarnation  of  high  spirits.  He  did 
also  some  of  the  sketches  illustrating  the  dramatic 
criticism.  Another  reason  why  the  Pick-me-up 
caricatures  occasionally  fail  is  that  they  were  mostly 
drawn  with  pen  and  ink,  in  which  medium  he  is  never  so 
successful  as  with  pencil. 

Any  student  of  Max's  caricatures  will  have  noticed 
his  constancy  to  certain  people.  Mr.  Balfour,  for 
example,  has  appealed  to  him  from  the  days  of  Pick- 
me-up  to  the  present  time  :  so  has  Mr.  Pinero,  no 
doubt  for  the  sake  of  his  eyebrows. 

It  was  in  the  third  number  of  the  Yellow  Book 
(October,  1894)  that  there  appeared,  with  the  appro- 
priate essay,  the  drawing  of  King  George  IV.  which  is 
reproduced  here.  So  that,  the  same  periodical  which 
had  introduced  him  to  the  literary  public  as  an 
essayist,  managed  also  his  debut,  a  very  notable  one,  so 
far  as  the  same  sort  of  public  was  concerned,  as  a 
caricaturist.  This  drawing  is  a  most  convincing  pre- 
sentment,— not  necessarily  of  George  IV.  as  he  was  ; 
that  is  open  to  question — but  George  IV.  as  Max, 
judging  by  the  essay,  conceived  him  to  be.  This  draw- 
ing is  in  pencil,  touched  here  and  there  with  blue  and 
red — a  tinge  of  red  in  the  multiple  chins  and  blue  for  the 
Garter  riband.  The  folds  of  the  enormous  stock  are 
specially  to  be  commended.  The  outlines,  the  reader 
will  see,  occasionally  falter,  as  in  the  skirt  of  the  coat, 
but  elsewhere  though  they  are  made  up  of  many 
strokes  their  cumulative  effect  is  wonderfully  true. 
Nowadays  Max  will  draw  one  line  (where  but  one  is 

120 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


needed),  one  beautiful  curve  which  is  certain  and  un- 
hesitating and  right,  and  he  will  do  it  at  once.  With 
him  it  was  no  doubt  largely  a  question  of  practice,  but 
for  a  long  time  after  he  drew  this  George  IV.  he  had  to 
depend  for  his  effect  upon  composite  lines.  Then,  the 
arrangement  of  this  drawing,  the  proportion  and 
placing  of  the  dark  in  relation  to  the  light  masses,  and 
the  sense  of  symmetrical  design  in  the  curves  of  the 
waistcoat  collar  swooping  from  beneath  the  lapel  of  the 
coat— all  these  testify  to  the  fastidious  proclivities  of  an 
artist. 

I  have  heard  people  complain  that  this  drawing  is 
vulgar  and  gross.  As  a  drawing  it  is  not ;  but  it  is  an 
extremely  sensitive  caricature  of  a  man  in  whom,  with 
other  qualities,  grossness  at  all  events  emphatically 
had  its  place. 

Amongst  other  magazines  in  which  Max's  caricatures 
appeared  from  time  to  time  was  the  Savoy  edited 
by  Arthur  Symons  with  Aubrey  Beardsley  as  art 
editor  ;  which,  before  it  appeared  was  supposed  to  be 
about  to  cast  the  very  moderate  "  daring  "  (how  odd 
the  word  seems  now  to  us  in  that  connection  !)  of  the 
Yellow  Book  in  a  very  obscure  shade. 

"  With  merrier  lips  old  Pan  shall  play 
Drain-pipes  along  the  sewer's  way  " — 

wrote  (then  Mr.)  Owen  Seaman  in  anticipation:  nor 
was  his  prognosis  wholly  immerited. 

In  the  first  number  of  the  Savoy  there  is  a  caricature 
of  "  Mr.  Beerbohm  Tree,"  which  is  not  specially  remark- 
able, save  for  the  extreme  purity  of  the  line.    The  actor 

121 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


is  standing  in  his  famous  and  favourite  attitude  of 
those  days,  his  right  hand  in  his  pocket,  his  left  shoulder 
thrown  back  in  such  a  way  as  almost  to  pull  his  coat 
off :  the  left  hand  being  perched  high  on  a  long  cane. 

In  another  number  of  the  Savoy  there  is  a  drawing  of 
Mr.  Arthur  Roberts,  which  is  remarkable  because  it 
shows  the  extreme  liberties  that  Max  used  to  take  in 
those  days  with  the  human  anatomy.  In  this  case  the 
mouth,  characteristically  twisted  on  one  side,  is  literally 
placed  inches  out  of  its  natural  position,  however  dis- 
torted that  may  have  been.  It  is  drawn  in  a  place 
where  no  mouth  could  possibly  be — ^not  under  the  nose 
at  all.  And  why  should  it  be  ?  It  conveys  the 
impression  required,  and  the  very  essence  of  cari- 
caturish  technique  is  to  take  violent  liberties.  In  this 
respect  Max's  great,  and  recent,  improvement  in  the 
technique  belonging  to  normal  and  serious  art  has 
tended  to  come  between  him  and  true  caricature.  He 
is,  of  course,  infinitely  more  subtle  than  he  used  to  be, 
and  he  uses  the  finest  shades  of  exaggeration  with 
admirable  effect ;  but  the  almost  entire  loss  of  gross 
exaggeration  is  to  be  deplored. 

Caricatures  of  Twenty-five  Gentlemen  was  published 
in  1896,  and  was  dedicated  "  To  the  Shade  of  Carlo 
Pellegrini."  It  is  an  extremely  interesting  little  book 
to  study,  if  only  for  the  purposes  of  comparison  :  for 
half  of  the  subjects  have  since  been  caricatured  by  Max 
again  and  again.  Lord  Rosebery  comes  first,  and  his 
treatment  has  never  varied  much  since — the  big  eyes 
wide-opened  in  a  kind  of  intellectual  innocence,  and 
the  sweep  of  the  collar  with  its  rounded  points,  provide 

122 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


Max  with  the  opportunities  his  pencil  seems  ever  to 
hke  best.  The  drawing  of  Joseph  Chamberlain  is  a 
good  instance  of  an  excellent  caricature  which  is  a  bad 
physical  likeness.  "  Aubrey  Beardsley  "  is  a  diagram, 
not  a  mere  exaggeration.  If  it  were  done  anew  to-day 
it  would  probablj^  be  called  a  portrait  of  one  of  the 
"trick"  schools  of  art,  for  it  is  full  of  anatomical 
absurdities,  but  remains  both  a  good  likeness  and  a 
good  caricature.  This  drawing  was,  I  think,  first 
reproduced  in  the  second  number  of  the  Savoy.  Then 
there  is  once  again,  as  again  on  many  occasions 
there  was  yet  to  be — ^the  infinite  slenderness  of  Mr. 
Balfour ;  the  chin  of  Mr.  Eapling,  the  cigar  of  King 
Edward  (then  Prince  of  Wales).  Mr.  Robert  Hichens, 
with  great  affability,  stirring  his  tea  is  a  portrait  rather 
than  a  caricature.  Mr.  (subsequently — Sir)  George 
Lewis  is  a  caricature  without  being  in  any  sense  a 
portrait.  It  was  a  good  beginning  and  there  were  in 
the  book  very  few  failures. 

When  Caricatures  of  Twenty-five  Gentlemen  was  first 
published,  some  one  who  had  bought  a  copy,  meeting- 
its  author  one  day,  asked  him  if  he  would  wite  his 
name  in  it ;  and  on  his  return  to  his  home  in  the 
country,  sent  the  book  for  this  purpose  to  Mr.  Beerbohm, 
who  promptly  did  not  only  as  he  had  been  asked,  but 
added  a  caricature  of  himself.  He  then  put  the  book 
on  a  shelf  against  the  time,  perhaps,  when  brown  paper 
and  string  should  be  within  reach.  And  ten  years 
went  by. 

And  one  day  Mr.  Beerbohm  met  the  owner  of  the 
book  again,  who  said  nothing  about  it,  but  looked 

123 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


wistful.  And  Mr.  Beerbohm's  conscience  smote  him, 
and  he  went  home,  and  again  wrote  his  name  in  the 
book,  and  he  added  another  caricature  of  himself  as  he 
then  was  ;  and,  moreover,  as  some  sort  of  quittance, 
made  fresh  caricatures  of  all  the  Twenty-five  Gentle- 
men, side  by  side,  on  the  right  hand,  with  the  original 
prints.  And  he  put  the  book  on  a  shelf  against  the 
time,  perhaps,  when  brown  paper  and  string  should  be 
within  reach.    And  ten  years  went  by. 

And  one  day  Mr.  Beerbohm  met  the  owner  of  the 
book  again,  who  said  nothing  about  it,  but  looked 
wistful.  And  Mr.  Beerbohm's  conscience  smote  him, 
and  he  went  home,  and  again  wrote  his  name  in  the 
book,  and  he  added  another  caricature  of  himself  as 
he  then  was  ;  and,  moreover,  as  some  sort  of  quittance, 
made  fresh  caricatures  of  all  the  Twenty-five  Gentle- 
men, side  by  side,  on  the  left  hand,  with  the  original 
prints.  And  he  put  the  book  on  a  shelf  against  the 
time,  perhaps,  when  brown  paper  should  be  within  his 
reach  and  string  at  all  procurable  (for  we  have  now 
come  to  the  year  1916).  And — I  am  sorry  to  spoil  the 
story,  but — I  believe  the  book  has  been  sent,  quite 
lately,  to  its  owner.  And  for  that  book,  as  it  now  is,  it 
must  be  well  worth  having  waited  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

To  an  earlier  period  by  three  years  than  the  Twenty- 
jive  Gentlemen,  belong  the  drawings,  reproduced  here 
for  the  first  time,  made  in  a  copy  of  a  little  book  by 
Mr.  Richard  le  Gallienne.  Max  Beerbohm's  aptitude 
for  illustrating^  his  own  or  his  friends'  copies  of  other 
people's  books  has  already  been  referred  to.  The  first 
drawing  shown  here  is  made  on  the  cover  under  the 

124 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


printed  title.  It  satirises  one  aspect  of  the  'nineties 
by  describing  the  transmutation  of  John  Bull  into  an 
ornate  poet.  "  The  Bourgeois  a  Decadent  is  Become." 
The  second  drawing,  which  is  from  the  title-page 
within,  speaks  for  itself :  in  the  third  we  see  Mr.  le 
Gallienne  with  one  top-hat  for  each  side  of  his  coiffure, 
winking  at  Mr.  John  Lane.  Next — and  this  is  an 
admirable  bit  of  drawing — a  minor  poet,  who  has 
invoked  his  Muse,  at  the  sight  of  her  promptly  thrusts 
himself  through  with  his  own  pen.  Lastly,  we  have 
Mr.  le  Gallienne  once  more  in  a  drawing  which  despite 
some  infirmity  of  line  exhibits  that  very  virtuous 
feeling  for  symmetry  which  is  so  signal  a  characteristic 
of  Max's  work  to-day. 

The  self-caricature  in  a  top-hat  and  loudly  checked 
trousers  also  belongs,  roughly  speaking,  to  this  period. 
There  is  in  it  one  considerable  fault — the  inaccuracies, 
within  the  limits  of  the  convention,  in  the  topper.  The 
latitude  allowed  to  caricaturists  is  chiefly  confined  to 
proportion  :  a  hat  may  be  seven  sizes  too  large  or  too 
small,  but  if  the  caricaturist's  intention  is  to  present  a 
particular  sort  of  hat,  the  shape  of  it  and  the  proper 
shadows  should  be  given  faithfully.  Here  the  propor- 
tions of  the  hat  are  caricatured,  but  are  not  correctly 
drawn  in  relation  to  the  artist's  own  conception.  Apart 
from  that  the  caricature  is  beautiful  in  the  sense  that 
perfect  curves  are  always  things  of  beauty :  and  the 
shading  of  the  hair,  with  its  rudimentary  pigtail,  the 
high  glossiness  of  the  collar,  the  long  crescent  of  white 
waistcoat  dividing  the  line  of  dark  tie  from  the  mass  of 
dark  coat — all  contribute  to  a  true  rhythm  of  design. 

125 


Ill 


The  caricatures  in  Max's  second  book  of  drawings, 
The  Poefs  Corner,  were  exhibited,  with  a  few  others,  at 
the  Carfax  Gallery  in  May,  1904,  and  had  no  doubt  been 
for  the  most  part  made  not  long  before.  On  the  other 
hand.  Cartoons :  The  Second  Childhood  of  J ohn  Bull, 
which  was  not  published  until  1911,  had  been  drawn  in 
1901.  So  that  these  two  books  should  be  classed 
together,  and  A  Book  of  Caricatures,  which  came  in 
between  and  was  published  in  1907,  should  be  con- 
sidered later,  for  the  drawings  in  it  are  far  in  advance 
of  the  others.  It  is  indeed  one  of  the  most  satisfying 
collections  of  Max's  work. 

The  Poefs  Corner  and  The  Second  Childhood  of  Joh7i 
Bull  contain  many  good  caricatures  which  are  extremely 
amusing,  but  the  drawings  lack  the  sleekness  and 
smoothness  which  make  the  later  work  beautiful ;  and, 
for  the  most  part,  they  want  the  monstrosity  v/hich  is 
so  engaging  in  the  earliest  caricatures  of  all. 

Among  the  Poets,  Homer  is  seen,  with  innumerable 
heads  "  going  his  round,"  accompanied  by  a  dog  with 
a  money  box.  WiUiam  Wordsworth,  in  the  Lake  Dis- 
trict, is  represented  as  a  paragon  of  aged  benevolence, 
chucking  a  little  girl  under  the  chin  ;  and  here  there  is 
a  hint  of  the  fine  sense  of  composition  which  was  to 
develop  much  later.    "  Mr.  Tennyson  reading  '  In 

126 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


Memoriam '  to  his  Sovereign "  is,  perhaps,  a  better 
satire.  This  is  an  ugly  drawing,  but  then  ughness  was 
necessary  to  carry  the  point.  We  see  an  enormous 
room,  with  crimson  curtains  and  table  cloth  and  a  plum- 
coloured  carpet  with  a  floral  diaper  pattern  of  pale  blue ; 
and  in  it  the  poet  sits  declaiming,  at  a  very  respectful 
distance  from  the  tiny  Queen.  It  is  a  commentary  on 
Victorianism  generally  rather  than  on  Tennyson. 

The  most  amusing  of  the  s'eries  is  the  drawing  of 
Matthew  Arnold  which  is  possibly  derived  in  part  from 
the  unsigned  Vanity  Fair  caricature,  published  in  1871. 
In  Max's  drawing,  a  little  girl  with  a  pigtail  and  the  dark 
red  dress  of  the  period  and  her  hands  dutifully  clasped 
behind  her,  looks  up  to  the  big  man,  lounging  with  a 
wide  sardonic  grin  against  the  mantelpiece.  Under- 
neath is  written  :  "  To  him.  Miss  Mary  Augusta,  his 
niece  :  '  Why,  Uncle  Matthew,  oh  why,  will  not  you  be 
always  wholly  serious  ?  '  " 

Then  there  is  "  Mr.  Robert  Browning  taking  tea  with 
the  Browning  Society,"  in  which  the  comfortable, 
homely  old  gentleman  sits  unconcernedly,  with  terribly 
earnest  and  intense  "  intellectuals  "  (who,  we  have  been 
told,  put  in  the  meaning  to  many  of  the  master's 
poems)  yearning  all  round  him. 

Byron,  on  the  other  hand,  shaking  the  dust  of 
England  from  his  shoes,  is  poor,  whether  as  a  portrait, 
a  caricature,  or  as  a  drawing.  But  the  splendid  energy 
of  the  hairy  and  ancient  Walt  Whitman  merrily 
"  inciting  the  Bird  of  Freedom  to  soar  "  makes  up  for 
it.  Then,  we  in  company  with  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain 
take  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse  and  Mr.  Austin  Dobson 

127 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


unawares  at  the  Board  of  Trade  in  the  early  'eighties, 
composing  a  ballade  during  office  hours. 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  with  his  friends,  in  his  back 
garden,  is  well  enough  in  his  way,  but  is  entirely 
eclipsed  by  the  series  of  Rossetti  drawings  done  by  Max 
during  1916  and  1917.  Nevertheless,  the  impishness 
of  Swinburne  stretching  down  from  the  top  of  the 
garden  wall  to  pull  Whistler's  white  forelock,  and  Watts- 
Dunton's  finger  held  up  in  staid  warning  is  delightful. 
This  and  almost  all  the  other  drawings  in  the  book 
suffer  from  the  too  liberal  use  of  a  fine  pen.  The  line 
is  often  true  and  expressive,  but  the  effect  is  all  cumula- 
tive, and  not  spontaneous. 

The  best  drawing  among  the  Poets  is  that  which  dis- 
closes Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  "  table-talking."  He 
sits,  slightly  overcome,  at  one  end  of  his  table,  while  his 
guests  lean  together  on  either  side  ;  so  that  in  the  front 
and  the  back  view  there  is  an  almost  pyramidal  effect, 
each  man  leaning  on  his  neighbour,  till  we  come  to  the 
apex,  a  guest  with  his  nose  pointing  upwards.  They 
are  all  snoring. 

Neither  Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats  nor  Mr.  George  Moore  have 
been  for  long  neglected  throughout  Max's  career,  and 
here  the  poet  is  seen  seriously  presenting  the  mildly 
bewildered  novelist,  who  is  sucking  the  knob  of  his  cane, 
to  the  Queen  of  the  Fairies.  Escape  rather  than 
neglect  is,  perhaps,  what  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling  has  ever 
lacked  at  Max's  hand,  and  when  he  "  takes  a  bloomin' 
day  aht,  on  the  blasted  'eath,  along  with  Brittania,  'is 
gurl,"  we  can  only  expect  him  to  exchange  hats  with 
her,  which  he  very  happily  does. 

128 


"If  the  Age-Limit  is  Raised  to  Forty-Five." 
Colonel :  "  Complaints  again  ?    Well  ?  " 

Pte.  Rolhensfein  :  "  Our  drill  during  the  past  week  has  averaged  no  mon> 
than  eleven  hours  daily.  The  regiment  is  being  demoralized.  Yesterday  I 
saw  Private  Beerbohrii  buying  a  paeket  of  cigarettes.  The  Sergeant,  to 
whom  I  had  been  talking  for  some  minutes  after  Parade,  said  'Oh.  bh)w 
them  Ajanta  Frescoes.'  I  must  press  the  question  I  put  to  you  yei^teiday  ; 
Is  this  Salisbury  Plain  or  is  it  Capua  ?  " 

A  Caricature  by  Max 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


In  The  Second  Childhood  of  John  Bull,  Mr.  Kipling 
appears  again  in  a  Norfolk  jacket,  a  cricket  cap,  smoking 
a  clay  pipe,  and  holding  a  mug  of  beer.  This  cartoon 
is  called  "  De  arte  poetica,"  and  the  decrepit  and 
querulous  old  John  says  to  him  : 

Yes,  I've  took  a  fancy  to  you,  young  feller.  'Tain't 
often  I  cottons  to  a  pote,  neither.  'Course  there's  Shake- 
speare. 'E  was  a  wonder,  'e  was  (sentimentally)  '  Swan  of 
Avon  '  /  calls  'im.  Take  'im  for  all  in  all  we  shall  not  look 
upon  'is  hkes  again.  And  then  there  was  Tennyson — 'im 
as  wrote  the  ode  to  Balaclavy.  'E  was  a  master-mind  too, 
in  'is  way.  So's  Lewis  Morris.  Knows  right  from  wrong 
like  the  palm  of  'is  'and,  and  ain't  afraid  to  say  where  one 
begins  and  t'other  ends.  But  most  potes  ain't  Uke  that. 
What  I  say  is,  they  ain't  wholesome.  Look  at  Byron  ! 
Saucy  'ound,  with  'is  stuck-up  airs  and  'is  stuck-down 
collars  and  'is  oghng  o'  the  gals.  But  /  soon  sent  'im  to  the 
rightabout.  '  Outside,'  said  I,  and  out  'e  went.  And  then 
there  was  that  there  friend  of  'is,  went  by  the  name  o' 
Shelley,  'ad  to  go  too.  'E  was  a  fair  caution,  was  Shelley. 
Drounded  hisself  in  a  I-tahan  lake,  and  I  warrant  that  was 
the  first  bath  'e  ever  took.  Most  of  'em  is  like  that — not 
wholesome,  and  can't  keep  a  civil  tongue  i'  their  heads. 
You're  different,  you  are  :  don't  give  yourself  no  'aughty 
airs,  and  though  you're  rough  (with  your  swear-words  and 
your  what-nots),  I  will  say  as  'ow  you've  always  bin  very 
civil  an'  respec'ful  to  myself.  You're  one  of  the  right  sort, 
you  are.  And  them  little  tit-bits  o'  information  what  you 
gives  me  about  my  Hempire — why  Alf  'armsworth  'imself 
couldn't  do  it  neater,  I  do  believe.  Got  your  banjo  with 
you  to-night  ?  Then  empty  that  there  mug,  and  give  us  a 
toon. 

"  Lest  we  forget  Ourselves  "  shows  John  Bull  lying 
very  drunk  on  Mafeking  night  and  similar  occasions, 
while  in  another  cartoon  he  ignores  "  Colenso,  Magers- 


M.B.P. 


129 


K 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


fontein,  Spion  Kop,"  in  peaceful  slumber.  He  cringes 
to  Brother  Jonathan  and  snarls  over  his  shoulder  at 
Ireland.  But  Max  is  rather  evidently  on  his  side  when, 
from  his  pew,  John  Bull  thinks  "  The  Crusade  against 
Ritualism  "  is  better  than  cock-fighting  and,  chuckling, 
watches  the  encounter  between  the  acidulous  priest  with 
his  censer,  and  an  infuriated  opponent  with  his  umbrella. 

In  "  De  Arte  Theatrali  "  the  old  tyrant  dismisses  his 
maidservant,  Melpomene,  but  keeps  Thalia,  so  long  as 
she  doesn't  go  getting  any  ideas  into  her  head.  And 
the  book  ends  with  a  most  refreshing  classical  figure  of 
"  The  Twentieth  Century  Pressing  the  English  Rose 
between  the  Pages  of  History." 

In  the  Second  Childhood  there  is  a  rather  diverting 
printer's  error.  "  See  Contemporary  Historians  pas- 
sim "  was  what  Max  Beerbohm  wrote,  beneath  one  of 
the  titles  :  but  what  you  read  is  "  See  Contemporary 
Historian's  passion."  One  can,  indeed,  "  see "  the 
passion  of  some  of  them  after  the  publication  of  this 
book,  for  John  Bull  is  not  revealed,  as  we  have  seen, 
as  an  altogether  customarily  endearing  personality. 

Over  and  over  again  critics  have  solemnly  declared 
that  there  is  no  malice  in  Max — quite  as  though  malice 
in  a  satirist  were  an  unpardonable  sin.  There  is  malice 
in  all  of  us  :  and  Max  fights,  not  with  a  blunted  sabre 
(for  he  is  seldom  rude),  but  with  a  foil — from  the  point 
of  which  he  has,  now  and  again,  snicked  off  the  button. 
There  is  nothing  assertive  or  pushing  about  Max,  even 
when  he  is  most  egotistic.  He  is  quiet  always,  and 
dehcate.  He  has  insinuated  himself  into  his  present 
position  without  the  use  of  his  elbows. 

130 


IV 


In  a  way  of  speaking,  The  Poet's  Corner  and  The 
Second  Childhood  of  John  Bull  mark  a  period  of  tran- 
sition analogous  to  that  occupied  by  Yet  Again  and 
Zuleika  Dobson  in  regard  to  Max  Beerbohni's  writings. 
A  Book  of  Caricatures,  published  in  1907,  shows  him 
triumphantly  fledged  from  that  awkward  age,  and 
demonstrates,  apart  from  great  skill  in  caricaturing,  a 
very  obvious  advance  in  technical  proficiency.  Here 
we  find  Max  depending  more  and  more  upon  pencil 
work,  eked  out  by  a  fine  steel  pen  line  but  not  depend- 
ing on  it.  His  infrequent  use  of  a  quill  is  in  an  entirely 
different  category,  and  this  with  a  light  wash  of  colour 
has  been  his  method  in  some  of  the  best  caricatures 
that  he  has  ever  made.  In  A  Book  of  Caricatures 
there  are,  done  in  this  manner,  most  vivid  drawings  of 
"  Sem  " — the  French  caricaturist,  of  "  Lord  Tweed- 
mouth  "  and  of  "  Mr.  Reginald  Turner  "  :  whilst  in 
private  collections  there  are  a  Swinburne,  done  so  long 
ago  as  June,  1899,  "  Sir  Squire  Bancroft,"  and 
"  James  Welch."  These  are  all  particularly  good 
caricatures,  but  as  drawings  it  is  doubtful  if  Max  has 
ever  done  better.  The  Swinburne  is  really  exquisite. 
For  the  line  of  the  great  forehead — it  is  nearly  a  full 
face — the  quill  was  deliberately  left  nearly  empty  of 

131  K  2 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


ink.  So  there  is  a  perfectly  firm,  though  faint,  double 
line  exactly  fulfilling  the  needs  of  the  high  light.  The 
few  remaining  curls  are  sketched  in  with  a  full  pen,  and 
the  clothes  are  lightly  tinted  with  a  wash.  The  left 
shoe  is  half  off  the  foot — as  ever  in  Max's  caricatures 
of  Swinburne.  You  feel,  in  looking  at  this  drawing,  as 
at  the  others  mentioned  as  being  of  the  same  feather, 
that  there  could  have  been  no  preparation,  no  study 
on  Max's  part.  He  had,  I  imagine,  an  inspiration  and 
transferred  it  to  paper,  at  once,  without  the  slightest 
hesitation  and  without  a  false  stroke.  It  is  not  the 
sort  of  thing  that  happens  often. 

In  A  Book  of  Caricatures  all  the  drawings  are  very 
finely  reproduced  with  the  utmost  care.  That  is  why, 
in  books  and  periodicals,  Max's  work  of  the  same  period 
sometimes  looks  so  uneven.  He  does  not  "  draw  well 
for  reproduction  "  and  he  needs  in  that  respect  the  best 
mechanical  processes  in  use. 

The  frontispiece  to  the  book  in  question  is  in  colour 
and  shows  "  Mr.  Sargent  at  Work  " — striding  vigor- 
ously towards  his  canvas  with  an  uplifted  brush  in  each 
hand,  and  a  small  string  band  in  the  foreground  playing 
to  stimulate  him.  "  Mr.  Henry  Chaplin,"  despite  a 
small  head  and  a  big  body,  is  vastly  dignified  and  the 
heaviness  and  bulk  of  his  overcoat,  and  the  softness  of 
its  texture,  are  beautifully  suggested.  The  tight- 
waisted  and  scrupulous  urbanity  of  M.  de  Soveral  lose 
nothing  in  reproduction,  but  I  do  miss  the  bright  blue 
jowl  which  ornamented  the  original. 

"  Some  Members  of  the  New  Enghsh  Art  Club  " 
includes  an  admirable  travesty  of  Professor  Rothen- 

182 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 

stein,  pointing  some  argument  with  one  huge  finger  of 
a  hand  almost  as  large  as  his  body.  Max  has  done 
this,  not  because  his  subject's  hands  are  particularly 
large,  but  in  order  to  emphasise  the  vehemence  of  the 
professor's  part  in  the  discussion.  In  this  group, 
amongst  many  other  people,  appears  the  late  Mr. 
Charles  Conder,  the  caricature  of  whom  is  so  obviously 
like  that  which  is  reproduced  in  this  book,  that  it  must 
have  been  done  at  the  same  time.  Probably  my 
illustration  is  a  finished  "  study  "  for  the  figure  in  the 
group.  In  any  case  it  is,  though  I  say  it,  better, 
because  the  top-hat  and  the  overcoat  in  the  exhibited 
caricature  tend  rather  to  spoil  the  design.  I  never 
saw  Mr.  Conder,  but  I  am  quite  prepared  to  take  the 
excellence  of  the  caricature  on  trust.  As  a  drawing  it 
seems  to  me  to  stand  alone,  if  only  for  the  beautiful 
lines  of  the  hair,  and,  especially,  the  sweep  of  the 
detached  forelock. 

Where  Lord  Northcliffe  is  seen  suggesting  a  headline 
to  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse,  Mr.  Gosse's  expression  may  be 
quite  easily  imagined:  there  is  not  only  the  look  of 
stark  horror  in  the  eyes,  but  the  whole  attitude  speaks  : 
the  head  is  a  shade  inclined  towards  the  speaker,  to 
make  sure  that  the  ear  has  heard  aright.  But  the  body 
is  slightly  twisted  away,  and  the  hands  are  clasped, 
desperately,  between  the  knees. 

Lord  Lytton  is  seen  dehcately  resting  his  hand  on  his 
hip  with  a  beautifully  curved  arm  that  has  no  elbow. 
This  is  Max's  convention,  and  an  exceedingly  graphic 
one,  for  the  arm  of  a  dandy  :  and  he  has  used  it  more 
than  once  since.    Then,  the  feet  of  dandies  he  makes 

133 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


either  very  small,  in  neat  refulgent  shoes,  or  else  he 
just  makes  the  legs  taper  off  into  vague  points.  To 
inelegant  persons,  on  the  other  hand,  he  gives  huge 
rounded,  but  amorphous  boots  of  the  most  cruelly- 
repulsive  kind.  I  wouldn't  say  that  he  gives  these 
boots  to  people  whose  qualities  he  dislikes,  for  I  can 
think  of  instances  to  the  contrary  :  but  he  certainly 
has  given  them  to  men  who  in  life  are  well-shod  in  order 
to  set  forth  some  analogous  defect  in  them. 

There  is,  too,  the  quiet  but  disgusted  dignity  of  Mr. 
Augustine  Birrell  listening  to  Mr.  Charles  Whibley 
trying  to  "  console  him  for  the  loss  of  his  Education  Bill 
by  a  discourse  on  the  uselessness  of  teaching  anything  ^ 
sacred  or  profane,  to  children  of  the  not-aristocratic 
class  " — which  reminds  us  that  age  and  genuine  pride 
invariably  appeal  to  Max,  who  never  makes  any  but 
the  kindest  fun  of  them. 

As  in  his  writing,  so  here,  Max  Beerbohm's  jokes  ^ 
though  plain  enough  sometimes,  are  always  distin- 
guished by  his  personal  outlook.  "  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells, 
Prophet  and  Idealist,  conjuring  up  the  Darling  Future  " 
is  definitely  Max's  own  way  of  putting  it.  But  there  is  no 
one — surely  ? — who  could  not  laugh  at  the  bespectacled 
mother  with  a  huge-headed  bespectacled  baby  to  whom 
the  idealist  is  offering  as  a  toy  a  small  isosceles  triangle. 

For  sheer  drawing  "  Mr.  Haddon  Chambers  "  and 
"  Mr.  Walter  Sickert  explaining  away  the  Piazza  San 
Marco,"  as  well  as  for  their  merits  as  caricatures,  are 
as  remarkable  as  much  of  the  latest  work  :  whilst  as 
caricatures  alone  "  Count  Benckendorff  "  and  "  Mr. 
William  Nicholson  "  are  superb. 

134 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


As  I  look  again  through  A  Book  of  Caricatures,  I 
begin  to  wonder  very  seriously  whether,  as  a  collection, 
Max  has  ever  surpassed  it.  Individual  drawings  done 
in  later  years  are  certainly  as  good  as  any  here  :  they 
may  even  be  a  little  better, — certainly  as  drawings,  if 
not  as  caricatures.  But  out  of  the  forty-eight  items  in 
this  book,  I  cannot  recall  one  that  is  definitely  poor. 
Some  may  be  bad  caricatures — without  intimate  know- 
ledge of  all  the  subjects,  some  of  whom  are  now  dead, 
it  is  impossible  to  say  :  but  they  all  look  as  though  they 
were  the  creatures  of  pure  inspiration. 


135 


V 


Fifty  Caricatures  is,  at  the  time  of  writing,  the  best 
known  of  Max's  books  of  drawings.  For  the  most  part 
it  contains  the  caricatures  exhibited  at  the  Leicester 
Galleries  in  May,  1913.  As  already  implied,  it  is  not 
so  satisfactory  a  collection  as  that  in  the  book  pub- 
lished six  years  before  it.  Here  and  there,  scattered 
throughout  it,  there  are  drawings  of  extraordinary 
brilliance,  with  which  it  is  well  nigh  impossible  to  find 
fault :  but  in  many  cases  the  style  does  not  seem  some- 
how to  be  spontaneously  Max's.  Not  that  there  is 
anything  about  any  one  of  the  drawings  that  could  be 
fastened  upon  as  belonging  to  the  character  of  any 
other  artist,  but  some  of  the  drawings  lack  that  sort  of 
inevitability  which  is  seen  in  all  the  drawings  of  the 
previous  book.  The  reason  for  this  is,  in  part,  the 
greatly  increased  use  of  water-colour,  and  the  fact  that 
Max  had  not  as  yet  overcome  the  technical  difficulty 
of  applying  it.  Here  there  is  too  much  pencil  work  in 
conjunction  with  too  opaque  a  tint,  and  the  result  in 
several  instances  is  a  heaviness  and  clumsiness  which  is 
entirely  foreign  to  the  true  manner  of  Max. 

The  cover  of  the  book  is  decorated  with  the  figure  of 
a  stout,  bald,  belaurelled  burgess  towards  whose  back 
an  arrow  comes  flying  from  the  corner.    Every  line  of 

136 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


him  denotes  self-satisfaction  and  self-indulgence.  He 
is  not  really  typical  of  the  contents  because  Max  seldom 
confers  the  distinction  of  caricature  upon  mediocrity, 
though  occasionally  he  is  forced  to  do  so  in  order  to  show 
the  world  at  large  that  its  ideas  upon  that  subject  are 
mistaken. 

Within,  there  are  two  caricatures  of  the  carefully 
drawn  rather  than  the  spontaneous  sort  which  are  for 
ever  memorable.  One  is  of  "  Lord  Chesterfield  "  with 
the  same  beautifully  curved  arm  that  the  "  Lord 
Lytton  "  had  in  the  previous  book,  and  a  great  wealth 
of  collar  and  tie  and  button-hole,  but  tapering  below 
that  almost  to  nothing.  The  face  is  not  much  exag- 
gerated. This  is  one  of  the  most  graceful  and  orna- 
mental caricatures  that  Max  has  ever  exhibited.  The 
other  is  "  Sir  Edward  Carson,"  with  a  grotesque  and 
over-stated  malignity  of  countenance  that  is  more 
arresting  than  funny.  Wasp-waisted  and  emaciated, 
he  is  wearing  simple  dark  clothes,  but  from  under  the 
tails  of  his  coat  appear  the  frogs  of  an  enormous 
cavalry  sword.  This  was  drawn  in  1912,  and  apart 
from  all  its  political  significance,  it  is,  as  a  design — as 
a  pattern  upon  paper  over  which  the  eye  roves,  balanc- 
ing— say — ^the  head  and  the  sword-hilt,  the  wide  hips 
and  the  tiny  waist,  deeply  impressive. 

One  political  cartoon,  exceedingly  amusing,  and  made 
up  of  individual  caricatures  of  the  utmost  skill,  is  quite 
spoiled  as  a  whole  by  two  blemishes  of  a  species  very 
rarely  found  in  this  artist. 

"  Some  Ministers  of  the  Crown,  who  (monstrous 
though  it  seem)  have  severally  some  spare  pounds  to 

137 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


invest,  implore  Sir  Rufus  Isaacs  to  tell  them  if  he 
knows  of  any  stocks  which  they  could  buy  without  fear 
of  ultimate  profit." 

"  Sir  Rufus  Isaacs  "  is  the  central  figure,  looking  very 
bland  and  innocent,  and  to  arrange  the  composition  of 
eight  others,  begging,  and  holding  out  greedy  palms,  all 
close  about  him,  must  have  been  difficult.  And,  for 
the  most  part,  the  difficulty  is  well  overcome,  but  the 
two  serious  mistakes  make  a  failure  of  the  whole.  In 
the  first,  the  bridge  of  Colonel  Seeley's  nose  is  absolutely 
flush  with  Sir  Edward  Grey's  shoulder ;  and  secondly, 
the  side  of  Sir  Rufus'  top-hat,  only  just  obscures  the  line 
of  Mr.  McKenna's  bulging  forehead.  The  fact  is  that 
Max  wanted  to  display  the  exaggerated  nose  and  fore- 
head, and  could  not  forego  the  pleasure  of  doing  so  to 
what,  at  the  time,  he  considered  their  best  advantage. 
Placed  as  they  are  they  quite  ruin  the  design.  If  the 
nose  had  been  partly  hidden  by  Sir  Edward's  coat,  and 
the  forehead  by  the  top-hat,  they  would,  in  fact,  have 
lost  nothing — possibly  gained,  indeed,  even  in  the 
literal  sense,  in  the  eyes  of  people  with  imagination. 
This  is  just  one  of  those  cases  where  a  good  piece  of 
work  is  marred  by  lack  of  the  rejectitious  faculty. 

"  Sir  Edward  Grey  "  being  hugged  by  the  Russian 
bear,  utterly  unlike  anything  Max  had  ever  attempted 
before,  is  especially  interesting  as  it  shows  what  can  be 
done  with  a  fairly  commonplace  idea  by  the  hand  of  an 
artist.  Not  quite  so  ordinary,  but  unexpected  from 
Max — is  "  Mr.  Balfour — A  Frieze,"  where  there  are  five 
figures  of  Mr.  Balfour  each  precisely  alike  save  for  the 
head  which  is,  in  each  succeeding  presentment,  thrown 

138 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


a  little  further  back,  until  at  last  the  hat  is  seen  dropping 
off.  Commonplace  ?  Not  quite  commonplace  ? — the 
word  and  even  the  qualification  of  it  is  used  relative  only 
to  the  present  theme.  One  would  never  dream  of 
thinking  either  of  these  notions  "  commonplace  "  had 
they,  more  or  less  similarly,  struck  another  artist. 

To  return  to  subjects  which  are  purely  characteristic  : 

Mr.  Brookfield  (with  whom  is  Mr.  Bcndall)  trying  to 
fall  under  the  spell  of  the  modern  drama  "  is  delightful. 
The  modern  drama  is  given  as  a  fearsome  young  female 
with  pince  nez,  no  chin,  sandals  and  an  "  art  "  dress. 
On  the  wall  behind  her  hangs  a  picture  of  the  buxom 
and  more  firmly  established  drama,  "  flirting  "  her  fan. 

Mr*  Brookfield,"  with  his  head  thrown  back,  is  a 
caricature  which,  I  imagine,  must  be  perfect.  There 
are  certain  caricatures  which  tell  you,  quite  plainly,  that 
they  are  good,  however  ignorant  you  may  be  of  the 
subjects  :  and  subsequent  investigation  shows,  in  these 
instances,  that  they  have  told  you  right. 

"  Cecils  in  Conclave  "  comes,  after  many  anecdotal 
cartoons,  as  a  great  relief,  for  it  is  pure  caricature  of 
three  brothers  without  any  ulterior  motive  whatever. 
"  Our  Yellow  Press  "  (in  "  Such  good  '  Copy  '  ")  urging 
Bellona  to  light  up  her  torch  is  entertaining  apart  from 
its  explicit  lesson,  because  the  pressman,  with  his 
camera,  combines  every  physical  and  sartorial  quality 
which  Max  quite  obviously  abominates. 

But,  once  more,  it  is  when  he  tackles  his  own  fellows 
that  he  is  most  free  and  most  happy.  Here  we  have  Mr. 
Arnold  Bennett  sitting  on  a  milestone  being  sternly 
lectured  by  Hilda  Lcssways  for  keeping  her  standing 

189 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


about,  while  the  respectable  Clayhanger  dismally  waits 
behind  her.  This  drawing  is  in  Max's  roughest  style, 
but  it  suits  the  theme. 

"  Annual  Banquet — a  Suggestion  to  the  New  English 
Art  Club  "  is  inspired.  Alternating  with  the  members 
at  the  long  table  are  Mr.  Asquith,  the  Prince  of  Wales 
(crushed  somewhat  between  Mr.  Walter  Sickert  and 
Mr.  Wilson  Steer),  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (with 
thumbs  and  fingers  reverently  put  together),  and  the 
late  Duke  of  Argyll.  All  the  guests  are  in  evening 
clothes,  all  the  members  are  shaggy  and  tousled.  This 
group  recalls  another — "  Sudden  Appearance  of  Mr.  Max 
Beerbohm  in  the  New  English  Art  Club,"  itself  having 
a  place  in  the  club's  exhibition  in,  I  think,  the  summer  of 
1909.  There,  an  exquisitely  dressed  figure  with  droop- 
ing eyelids,  topper  in  hand,  comes  gliding  down  a  vista 
of  disreputably  attired  painters  (not  individual  carica- 
tures this  time),  who  point  uncouth  fingers  at  him,  in 
anger  and  derision. 

In  Fifty  Caricatures  Mr.  Roger  Fry  is  seen  in  an  atti- 
tude of  ecstasy  before  a  small  wooden  soldier  of  the 
"  Noah's  Ark  "  type,  standing  on  a  marble  pedestal, — 
"  We  needs  must  love  the  highest  when  we  see  it." 
There  are,  too,  some  admirable  post-impressionist 
pictures  on  the  wall  that  serves  as  a  background.  The 
ingenuous  and  almost  boyish  enthusiasm  of  the  critic, 
both  in  gesture  and  in  facial  expression,  are  most  bliss- 
fully counterfeited. 

Of  wider  interest,  there  are  two  cartoons  here,  which 
find  their  appropriate  sequels  (as  does  Mr.  Fry,  for  that 
matter)  in  the  exhibition  of  May,  1921.    Here  we  have 

140 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


"  A  Study  in  Democratic  Assimilation  "  which  is  one 
of  the  subtlest  things  Max  has  ever  done.  Represent- 
ing the  year  1868  we  see  the  "  Scion  of  Proletariat  "  and 
"  Scion  of  Nobility  "  vigorously  differentiated.  The 
respective  scions  for  the  year  1908  are  at  the  first  glance 
precisely  alike,  but — only  at  the  first  glance  .  .  . 

The  second  drawing  of  this  category  shows  "  The 
Grave  Misgivings  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  and  the 
Wicked  Amusement  of  the  Eighteenth,  in  watching  the 
Progress  (or  whatever  it  is)  of  the  Twentieth  " — which 
is  seen  in  aeronaut's  costume,  sweating,  desperate,  rush- 
ing headlong.  That  "  Progress  (or  whatever  it  is)  " 
will  warm  the  cockles  (or  whatever  they  are)  of  many  a 
weary  heart. 

Amongst  miscellaneous  drawings  in  private  collec- 
tions, there  are  several,  very  little  known  as  yet,  men- 
tion of  which  cannot  be  omitted  from  any  description 
of  Max's  work.  Some  of  these  have  been  shown  in 
galleries  once,  but  never  reproduced.  Some  have 
never  been  exhibited  at  all. 

There  are,  for  instance,  a  series  of  eleven  drawings  of 
Mr.  Gladstone  in  the  next  world,  recording  his  meetings 
with  Parnell,  Gordon,  the  Prince  Consort  (who  cuts  him), 
and  the  Devil  ("  Peace  with  Sulphur  "  this  last  picture 
is  called).  Then,  not  in  that  series,  there  is  "  A  Recent 
Rapprochement  in  Elysium "  in  which  appear  Mr. 
Gladstone,  who  looks  sour,  and  Lord  Beaconsfield,  who 
looks  bored.  Underneath  this  (undated)  drawing  are 
the  words :  "  For  good  or  ill,  at  least  we  did  do 
something.'' 

A  cartoon  of  peculiar  interest  to  Oxford  is  "  The 
141 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


Encaenia  of  1908  :  being  a  humble  hint  to  the  Chan- 
cellor based  on  the  Encaenia  of  1907,  whereby  so  many 
idols  of  the  market-place  were  cheerily  set  up  in  the 
groves  of  the  Benign  Mother."  And  the  caricatures 
of  the  proposed  D.C.L.'s  include  Little  Tich,  (then 
Messrs.)  Conan  Doyle  and  Hall  Caine,  Mr.  R.  J.  Camp- 
bell, the  Prince  of  Wales,  Mr.  Sandow,  Sir  Thomas 
Lipton,  and  Mr.  G.  R.  Sims. 

A  surprisingly  bad,  conventional,  and  undiscerning 
caricature  is  one  of  Mr.  George  Robey,  who  is  a  much 
better  subject  for  treatment  than  the  artists  who  draw 
posters  of  him  lead  you  to  suspect.  That  Max  should 
have  followed  the  lines  of  those  artists  without  any 
sign  of  individual  interpretation  at  all  is  a  cause  for 
lamentation. 

The  nine  pictures  of  the  Edwardyssey,  describing  the 
adventures  of  Edwardysseus,  are  far  better  in  idea  than 
in  realisation,  with  one  exception,  in  which  Carlos 
Cyclops  detains  Edwardysseus  in  his  cave.  The  sheer 
wonder  of  this  is  the  fact  that  although  Max  has  given 
the  Cyclops  his  one  eye  in  the  middle  of  his  forehead, 
the  drawing  yet  remains  a  supremely  fine  caricature 
of  the  late  King  of  Portugal. 

Max  has  done  almost  uncountable  caricatures  of  King 
Edward,  but  the  best  in  incident  is  the  parody  of  the 
very  well-known  picture,  "  Your  Majesty,"  by  Miss 
Mary  L.  Gow,  of  Queen  Victoria,  receiving  her  ministers, 
on  the  death  of  King  William,  in  her  night-dress.  King 
Edward  VII.  is  "  duly  apprised  of  his  accession  "  and  is 
seen  coming  downstairs  dressed  in  blue  and  pink  striped 
pyjamas  to  receive  the  homage  of  Archbishop  Temple 

142 


I 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


and  Lord  Halsbury.  It  is  not  a  good  drawing:  it 
shows  signs  of  haste.  Once  again,  there  is  far  too  abject 
a  dependence  on  a  fine  steel  pen  ;  and  the  hght  wash  is 
too  cold  somehow  to  convey  the  right  atmosphere. 

Of  political  drawings,  one  made  in  1914  of  "  President 
Wilson  visiting  Congress  "  is  peculiarly  notable  in  the 
light  of  after-events.  The  President  appears  as  a 
delicate  and  refined  (it  is  the  only  word)  schoolmaster 
— a  prig,  one  might  say,  but  a  gentle  prig — regarding 
with  passionless  distaste  the  abysmal  grossness  of 
certain  Congressmen,  all  of  whose  necks  bulge  dread- 
fully over  their  collars. 

In  single  caricature  Mr.  Bonar  Law  looks  worthy,  Mr. 
Arnold  Bennett,  pleased  with  himself,  and  the  late  Mr. 
Alfred  Lyttelton  chuckles  in  an  impish  but  sophisti- 
cated way  at  his  own  thoughts,  the  repression  of  open 
mirth  being  wonderfully  suggested  by  the  way  in  which 
the  legs  are  twisted  in  and  out  of  each  other,  with 
laocoonlike  entanglements. 

A  series  of  imaginary  Members  of  ParUament  include 
"  The  Ordinary  Radical,"  "  The  Old-Fashioned  Tory," 
"  The  Labour  Member,"  "  The  Old-Fashioned  Liberal," 
"  The  Ordinary  Tory,"  "  The  Welsh  Member,"  "  The 
Professional  Member  whose  fame  is  outside  the  House," 
and  "  The  Tory  who  has  subscribed  much  to  Party 
Funds."  Yet  one  more  injustice  is  recorded  by  the 
somewhat  superficially  Irish  appearance  of  "  The  Irish 
Member."  But  you  can  see  that  "  The  Scotch  Member  " 
is  red  as  well  as  dour,  through  the  wash  of  watered 
Indian  ink  which  is  the  only  actual  colour  in  the  draw- 
ing.   The  best  of  this  series  is  "  One  of  the  few  Members 

143 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


who  care  about  the  Indian  Budget  " — an  old  colonel 
with  very  wide  trousers,  drawn  with  genuine  insight. 

One  of  the  best  of  Max's  literary  criticisms  made 
through  the  medium  of  drawing  is  called  "  '  A  Party 
in  a  Parlour,  all  Silent  and  all  Damned,'  and,  as  usual, 
Mr.  Joseph  Conrad  intruding."  Here  are  various  sea- 
captains,  all  woe-begone,  each  in  his  individual  way. 
Max  seems  to  have  introduced  every  known  attitude 
that  subtly  suggests  dejection.  There  is  a  depressed 
nigger,  a  sad  parrot,  and  an  old  lady  in  a  cap  with  a 
small  tight  bun  of  faded  hair.  Her  profile  not  merely 
shows  her  misery,  but  proves  it  to  be  an  irritating 
misery.  The  slightly  frog-like  mouth  and  eye,  the 
pallor,  make  you  feel  that  sadness  is  her  occupation  in 
life  ;  and  you  want  to  shake  her.  The  lamp  is  smoking, 
on  the  table  a  skull  lies  on  a  green  woolly  mat  beneath 
a  glass  dome,  and  two  untidy  and  sluttish  young 
women  lean  sulkily  against  chairs.  Mr.  Conrad,  very 
spick  and  span,  widely  grinning,  is  coming  in  at  the  door. 

This  is  a  sound  travesty  and,  left  alone,  is  of  abiding 
value,  so  long  as  the  works  of  a  very  great  master  shall 
live.  But  Max  has  not  left  it  alone  :  and,  most  admir- 
able in  itself  as  is  the  later  caricature  of  Mr.  Conrad, 
exhibited  in  1921s  it  is  an  anti-climax.  Here  the 
novelist  is  seen  gloating  over  a  snake  curling  itself  in  and 
out  of  the  interstices  of  a  skull  upon  the  seashore. 
"  What  a  delightful  coast,"  he  is  made  to  say.  "  One 
catches  an  illusion  that  one  might  forever  be  almost 
gay  here." 

It  is,  by  the  way,  a  rather  better  drawing  than  the 
"  Party  in  a  Parlour." 

144 


"  Quis  CusTODiET  Ipsum  Custodem  ?  " 

Theodore  Watts  :  "  Mr.  Caine,  a  word  with  you  !  Shields  and  I  liave  been 
talking  matters  over,  and  we  are  agreed  that  this  evening  and  henceforth  you 
mvst  not  and  fihall  not  read  any  more  of  your  literary  efforts  to  our  friend. 
They  are  too — what  shall  T  say  ? — too  luridly  arresting,  and  are  the  allies  of 
insomnia." 

A  Caricature  by  Max  (1916). 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 

But,  as  with  the  word  "  commonplace,"  so  any  small 
complaint  about  an  anti-climax  and  other  complaints 
that  may  be  made  are  all  governed  by  the  fact  that, 
from  his  earliest  days,  Max  has  taught  us  to  hover 
beyond  the  strict  limits  of  reason  in  our  expectations  of 
him. 

Many  of  the  drawings  that  were  reproduced  in  Fifty  Carica- 
tures, with  many  others  that  have  not  been  exhibited  at  all,  are  in 
the  collection  of  Mr.  Philip  Guedalla,  who  was  so  kind,  in  the 
former  case,  to  allow  me  to  renew  old  friendships,  and,  in  the  latter, 
to  make  fresh  acquaintances  of  the  most  enchanting  sort. 


145 


L 


VI 


During  the  years  1916  and  1917  Max  made  a  series 
of  twenty-three  caricatures  of  scenes  in  the  life  of  the 
Pre-Raphaehte  Brotherhood.  These  have  not  been 
exhibited.*  "  He  has  never  done  anything  better  " 
would,  I  imagine,  be  the  unanimous  verdict  of  the 
critics  ;  and  they  would  be  perfectly  right.  In  these 
caricatures  Max's  technique  in  actual  drawing,  in 
composition,  and  in  the  use  of  colour  had  been  deve- 
loped to  that  pitch  of  excellence  which  was  seen  in  the 
exhibition  of  May,  1921. 

Of  the  three  drawings  belonging  to  this  series  which 
are  reproduced  here,  one,  that  of  Swinburne  and  Mr. 
Gosse  has  already  been  referred  to.  The  others 
represent  "  A  momentary  vision  that  once  befell 
young  Millais,"  and  "  Quis  Custodiet  Ipsum  Cus- 
todem  ?  "  Young  Millais  is  at  work  upon  some 
Lorenzo  or  Giovanni,  some  conscientious  work  such 
as  now  conspicuously  hangs  (in  the  same  room — but 
I  may  be  wrong — as  Mr.  Maurice  Greiffenhagen's 
"  Idyll  ")  at  the  Walker  Art  Gallery  at  Liverpool  : 
and  sees  himself  old,  prosperous,  P.R.A.,  with  "  Cherry 
Ripe  "  upon  his  knee.  The  idea  behind  this  drawing 
is  extremely  witty  ;  and,  once  more,  the  old  allegiance 

*  Since  this  chapter  was  written,  an  exhibition  of  the  series  has 
been  held  at  the  Leicester  Galleries. 

146 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


to  clothes  is  to  be  observed  in  the  long  lithe  lines 
of  arms  and  legs  and  the  beautiful  curves  of  the 
waistcoat. 

"  Quis  Custodiet  Ipsum  Custodem  ?  "  is,  quite  apart 
from  its  merits  as  caricature,  the  most  decorative 
piece  of  work  that  Max  has  ever  done.  The  walls, 
with  Rossetti's  pictures,  the  wallpaper,  the  carpet, 
and  above  all  the  screen  are  most  exquisitely  drawn, 
and  the  old  golds,  browns,  and  yellows  with  which 
they  are  tinted  defmitcly  appeal  with  great  force  to  a 
side  of  our  taste  which  had  never  been  excited  by 
Max  before.  Yet  here  again,  oddly  enough,  he  makes 
the  mistake  which  so  spoils  a  drawing  referred  to  as 
in  Fifty  Caricatures.  As  with  Colonel  Seeley's  nose, 
so  here,  the  edge  of  the  round  looking-glass  comes 
exactly  to  the  edge  of  the  screen  :  and  so  that  part 
of  the  composition  stares  at  you  in  the  most  awkward 
fashion.  Unfold  the  delightful  screen  but  an  inch  or 
two  more  and  it  would  have  "  broken  "  the  rim  of  the 
glass,  and  your  eye  would  be  duly  gratified.  You 
may  say,  perhaps,  that  it  is  wrong  to  criticise  a  cari- 
caturist on  such  grounds  as  these  ;  but  Max's  technical 
excellence  in  the  drawing  of  that  picture  calls  for  such 
criticism. 

Then,  belonging  to  this  series,  there  is  Gabriel 
Rossetti  begging  his  sister  Christina  to  buy  some  of 
those  "  stunning  "  fabrics  from  "  that  new  shop  in 
Regent  Street,"  which  are  laid  out  in  all  their  alluring 
tints  upon  a  table  in  the  background — to  which 
Christina  replies :  "  Well,  Gabriel,  I  don't  know. 
I'm  sure  you  yourself  always  dress  very  simply." 

147  L2 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


And  you  see  him  there  with  his  untidy  garments 
hanging  about  him  in  ungainly  folds. 

"  A  man  from  Hymethus "  represents  Leighton 
trying  to  persuade  Rossetti  to  have  his  name  put 
down  in  the  Candidates'  book  of  the  RA.  In  this 
only  the  legs  of  Rossetti  at  the  end  of  a  sofa  are  seen, 
with  his  slippers  dangling  and  one  heel  showing  through 
a  large  hole  in  his  sock. 

In  "  Woolner  at  Farringford,  1857  "  Mrs.  Tennyson 
is  saying  to  Woolner  When  (I'm  only  asking)  when 
do  you  begin  modelling  his  halo  ?  "  Here  is  a  beautiful, 
clean-shaven  Tennyson,  which  with  other  drawings, 
notably  that  of  Rossetti  as  a  small  boy  lying  on  the 
floor  and  scribbling,  shows  Max  in  a  new  light,  recon- 
structing the  past,  no  doubt  with  the  help  of  portraits, 
daguerreotypes,  and  photographs,  but  in  his  indi- 
vidual way  and  with  a  result  that  is  highly  con- 
vincing. These  caricatures  of  young  people  whose 
faces  in  middle  life  or  old  age  it  is  which  are  familiar 
to  us  remind  one  of  a  group  that  Max  exhibited  some 
years  ago  called  :  "In  case  I  am  not  spared  to  see 
them  " — where  he  predicts  the  aged  appearance  of  a 
number  of  men  known  to  us  then  in  their  prime. 

In  the  "  Rossetti  "  series  there  is,  too,  Coventry 
Patmore  preaching  to  the  painter-poet  "  on  "  a  tea- 
pot, and  explaining  that  it  is  "  not  worshipful  for  its 
form  and  colour  but  rather  as  one  of  the  sublime 
symbols  of  domesticity  "  :  while  in  another  drawing 
Mr.  Morley  introduces  to  Rossetti  John  Stuart  Mill — 
a  delightful  old  man  (evidently)  of  distinguished 
dignity  and  kindliness. 

148 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


"  The  name  of  Rossetti  is  heard  for  the  first  time  in 
the  Western  States  of  America,  1882,"  in  a  lecture  by 
Oscar  Wilde,  dressed  in  puce-coloured  velvet.  The 
audience  consists  of  greatly  bewildered  old  farmers  and 
cowboys  who  listen  with  open  mouths.  In  "  Blue 
China"  we  have  Whistler  and  Carlyle  and  a  large 
Nankin  vase.  The  caricature  of  Whistler  suggests  to 
us  that  the  art  of  making  enemies,  though  gentle, 
was  quite  easy.  With  arms  outstretched  in  eagerness 
for  the  fresh  air  George  Meredith  exhorts  Rossetti  to 
come  for  a  walk.  This  brings  from  forgetfulness  the 
fact  that  Max  made  Meredith  the  subject  of  his  only 
caricature  in  Vanity  Fair.  That  was  a  beautiful 
drawing,  with  a  bird-like  innocence,  but  also  a  bird- 
like curiosity  in  the  uplifted  eyes,  with  the  finger  of 
one  hand  delicately  pointing,  while  the  other  droops 
upon  a  stick. 

Once  again  in  this  series  Max  returns  to  Swinburne, 
who,  with  his  flaming  aureole  of  hair,  is  seen,  during 
the  small  hours  "reading  Anacioria  to  Gabriel  and 
William,  at  16  Cheyne  Walk,  in  the  'sixties." 

Quite  apart  from  the  technical  merits  of  this  series 
it  is  a  profound  study  of  the  period,  the  result  of  the 
most  enthusiastic  research,  the  "  finishing  course  "  for 
any  neophyte  desiring  initiation  into  the  mysteries 
of  Pre-Raphaelitism.  But  here  for  the  first  time  in 
bulk,  though  single  instances  were  to  be  observed  in 
Fifty  Caricatures,  Max  has  shown  a  tendency  which 
has  been  so  deeply  deplored  by  critics  in  regard  to  his 
last  exhibition  :  a  tendency,  that  is,  to  make  portraits 
rather  than  caricatures.    True,  the  portraits  have  in 

149 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


them  all  manner  of  subtleties,  quiet  appreciations, 
recondite  disparagements,  as  indeed  have  serious 
portraits  by  accomplished  artists.  But  that,  speaking 
with  humility  combined  with  confidence,  is  not  Max's 
art. 

This  tendency  is  probably  common  to  every  one 
with  an  inborn  talent  for  caricature,  who  has  never 
"  learned  "  to  draw,  but  to  whom  constant  practice  in 
ordinary  representative  drawing  (which  the  carica- 
turist would  do  much  better  to  leave  alone)  brings,  as 
time  goes  by,  great  "  improvement."  Mr.  Leslie  Ward, 
"  Spy  "  of  Vanity  Fair,  is  a  particularly  good  (or  bad) 
instance  of  what  I  am  driving  at.  His  early  work, 
strongly  influenced  as  it  was  by  his  predecessor, 
"  Ape,"  was  excellent  caricature — though  no  doubt 
he  was  always  a  more  accomplished  draughtsman  and 
painter  in  the  normal  sense  than  Max.  He  probably 
knew,  that  is,  a  great  deal  more  about  modelling, 
chiaroscuro^  and  so  on.  But  as  the  years  went  on 
"  Spy  "  got  further  and  further  away  from  caricature, 
until  at  last  his  Vanity  Fair  cartoons  became  quite 
simple  portraits. 


150 


Mr.  R.  B.  Cunninghame  Graham. 
Studies  for  a  Caricature  by  Max  (1921). 


VII 


The  exhibition  of  May,  1921,  at  the  Leicester  Gal- 
leries, showed  not  only  an  inclination  to  reject  carica- 
ture in  its  more  exaggerated,  and  true,  sense,  but  also 
(to  get  over  the  worst  at  the  beginning)  displays  the 
fact  that  however  splendid  an  isolation  abroad  may  be 
from  a  personal  point  of  view,  it  has  a  deleterious  effect 
upon  one  who  seeks  to  go  on  making  caricatures  of 
people  he  has  not  seen  for  a  long  time.  Mr.  Lloyd 
George,  for  example,  though  caricatures  of  him  by 
Max  were  never  very  successful,  remains  almost  the 
same  (and  he  is  not)  as  when  he  is  seen  between  his 
"  Guardians,"  Mr.  Masterman  and  Mr.  Rufus  Isaacs, 
in  the  exhibition  of  1913  and  in  Fifty  Caricatures. 
Once  again,  Max  is  not  overwhelmingly  interested  in 
politicians,  and  he  has  seldom  put  his  heart  into  them, 
never  indeed  unless  there  is  in  them  something  outside 
politics.  That  is  not  to  depreciate  his  observations 
about  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  others,  which  are  infinitely 
better  and  more  true  than  the  actual  drawings.  In 
"  Woodrow  Wilson's  Peace  .  .  .  1920,"  you  see  the 
American  President,  an  invalid,  utterly  weary,  drawn 
almost  as  a  ghost  is  drawn,  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
saying  to  M.  Clemenceau,  with  a  nudge,  "  Thought  he 
was  going  to  get  the  better  of  you  and  I  "  ;  and  it  is 

151 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


only  people  who  have  not  begun  to  understand  what 
caricature  means,  who  have  pointed  out  that  the 
Prime  Minister's  English  is,  in  life,  quite  accurate. 

Max's  real  attitude  to  politics  is  probably  implicit 
in  the  caricature  called  Post  Taedia  Longa  Laborum  " 
where  M.  Paderewski  says  :  "  Ah,  read  me  one  of  the 
poems  of  your  youth  !  "  to  Signor  D'Annunzio,  who 
replies  :  "  Ah,  play  me  one  of  your  adorable  sonatas  !  " 

The  best  caricature  in  the  exhibition  was  that  of 
the  King  of  Spain  done  in  1914,  which,  greatly  exag- 
gerated, is  superbly  like  the  subject,  and  a  spiritual 
caricature,"  one  guesses,  of  the  highest  quality.  Also 
done  in  1914,  but  not  seen  till  the  exhibition  in 
question  was  Sir  Claude  Phillips  "  going  on,"  which  is 
very  admirable  indeed.  The  oriental  inscrutability  of 
Sir  Philip  Sassoon,  sitting  cross-legged  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  is  beautifully  rendered,  just  as  is  the  bland- 
ness  of  Mr.  Filson  Young.  Both  of  these  were  done  in 
1913. 

Another  drawing  made  at  some  time  before  the  war, 
which,  with  the  others  (Max  Beerbohm  wrote  in  an 
introductory  Note  to  the  Catalogue),  "  may  have  an 
old-world  charm,"  is  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  who  says  to 
himself :    "  Strange,  that  a  man  who  looks  so  very 

credulous  "         of  Sir  E.  Ray  Lankester,  who  in  turn 

observes  :  "  Odd  that  with  such  a  brow  "  

But  Mr.  Lytton  Strachey,  "  trying  "  ( — and  con- 
triving— as  Max  adds  in  a  postscript)  "  to  see  her  with 
Lord  Melbourne's  eyes  "  is,  I  am  informed,  almost  a 
portrait,  and  may  be  taken  as  a  fair  specimen  of  Max's 
later  work. 

152 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


"  H.R.H.  "  is  a  caricature  of  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
bored  and  weary  beyond  the  consolation  of  tears  by 
his  travels,  and  is  accompanied  by  an  explanation. 
"  A  pathetic  attempt  on  my  part  at  a  cartoon  that  shall 
be  acceptable  by  some  organ  of  the  comic  press." 

Apart  from  caricatures  and  cartoons  in  this  exhibition, 
he  gave  eighteen  examples  of  a  new  accomplishment — 
"  Doubles  "  or  "  Smudges  "  made  by  folding  a  sheet  of 
paper  upon  a  blotch  of  colour,  or  various  colours,  and 
subsequently  working  up  the  form  suggested  by  the 
result.  This  is,  of  course,  an  old  game — at  all  events 
with  ink  :  but  Max  has  carried  it  to  a  point  (reached,  he 
admits,  by  "  a  little  cheating  ")  far  in  advance  of  any- 
thing of  that  kind  seen  before.  These  doubles  are  all 
interesting,  some  of  them  genuinely  beautiful. 

In  his  general  comments  on  the  world  at  large 
Max  keeps  the  balance  true.  "  A  Translethean 
Soliloquy  "  shows  "  a  damsel  of  the  '  keepsake  '  time, 
observing  a  modern  young  woman  and  saying  :  '  I  do 
wonder  what  the  young  gentlemen  saw  in  me! '  "  On 
the  other  hand,  an  eminent  soldier,  at  the  present  day, 
to  whom  an  eminent  scientist  has  explained  a  new 
explosive,  says  :  "Well,  it's  perfectly  marvellous.  But — 
gad  ! — how  it  makes  one  wish  one  was  a  youngster  and 
sure  of  being  in  the  Next  Great  War."  This,  bitter 
as  it  is,  is  a  perfectly  fair  and  widely  deserved  criticism. 
That  is  one  kind  of  soldier.  Another  is  represented 
by  the  "  Colonel  "  in  the  caricature  of  "  Private 
Rothenstein,"  which  will  be  found  in  this  book.  The 
drawing  was  done  in  1916  or  1917  and  has  not  been 
exhibited.    It  is  explained  by  the  title  "  If  the  Age- 

153 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


Limit  is  Raised  to  Forty-Five."  The  words  (printed 
here  beneath  the  illustration)  which  the  private  is 
made  to  say  refer,  with  some  delicacy,  to  the  con- 
scientiousness of  the  professor — of  whom  it  is  a  masterly 
caricature.  But  the  Colonel,  not  an  individual,  is, 
though  not  a  caricature,  a  most  brilliant  invention. 
Do  we  not  all  know  him,  and  (some  of  us,  still)  honour 
him  ?  His  high  breeding,  his  kindliness,  and  his 
strength  are  all  as  manifest  as  the  obstinacy  denoted 
by  the  extraordinarily  clever  straight  line  which  runs 
from  his  cap  to  his  shoulder,  and  perhaps  a  little 
stupidity  combined  with  much  "  native  "  shrewdness, 
There  is  nothing  sophisticated  about  the  Colonel. 
But  there  is  also  in  him  none  of  the  senseless  brutality 
of  the  man  who  wanted  to  be  in  the  Next  Great  War. 
And  probably  he  knows  a  bit  more  than  his  job,  is 
good,  and  clean,  and  a  rather  low-churchman,  is  fond 
of  children,  has  a  little  land,  knows  all  the  difference 
between  curry  and  what  English  cooks  call  curry, 
and  has  an  intensely  quiet  voice  Avhich  maddens  with 
fury  the  "  younger  intellectuals  "  by  whom  he  does  not 
in  the  least  mind  being  derided  and  misunderstood. 


We  come  now  to  that  kind  of  satire  which  comple- 
ments certain  of  the  essays  in  And  Even  Now.  One  of 
these  is  amusing — "  Tout  pent  se  retablir — Urgent 
Conclave  of  Doctrinaire  Socialists  to  decide  on  some 
means  of  inducing  the  Lower  Orders  to  regard  them 
once  more  as  Visionaries  merely."     Some  of  the 

154 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


Socialists  are  portraits,  as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Cunning- 
hame  Graham,  and  some  caricatures,  as  Mr.  Sidney 
Webb.  But  the  whole  drawing  is  beautiful.  From  a 
caricaturish  point  of  view,  the  studies  of  Mr.  Cunning- 
hame  Graham  in  this  book  are  better  than  the  finished 
drawing,  and  provide  in  that  respect  a  parallel  with  the 
caricature  of  Charles  Conder.  Each  of  these  studies  is 
extraordinarily  Hke  the  subject,  who— himself  a  dandy 
in  more  senses  of  the  word  than  one — in  the  nature  of 
things  appeals  very  strongly,  as  a  subject,  to  Max. 

We  now  come  to  the  more  definite  emblems  of  Max's 
outlook  upon  the  world  to-day. 

"  St.  James's  Street  a  Few  Years  Ago  "  shows  us  "  The 
Marquess  of  Pantagruel  believing  (quite  rightly)  that 
the  sight  of  him  cheers  and  pleases  the  populace  "  :  and 
"  St.  James's  Street  To-day,"  where  a  shabbier 
Marquess  believes  "  (rightly  or  wrongly)  that  the  sight 
of  him  embitters  the  populace." 

(One  has  a  feeling  almost  of  indelicacy  in  referring 
to  the  next  couple  of  cartoons,  but  for  the  purposes  of 
this  book,  it  has  to  be  done.)  "  Author,  Publisher,  and 
Printer  in  the  dear  old  recent  recent  time  "  describes  the 
first  as  only  comparatively  indigent,  the  second  fat  and 
prosperous,  handing  a  parcel  of  manuscript  with  a 
pompous  air  to  a  deferential  printer.  "  Author, 
Publisher,  and  Printer,  at  the  present  time  "  are  given 
as  a  beautifully-drawn  skeleton  cringing  to  an  all-but- 
skeleton  cringing  to  a  very  prosperous  and  conde- 
scending Person  indeed. 

Then  "'When  Labour  Rules,'  or,  what  M.  Cambon 
frightfully  foresees,  and  why  M.  Cambon  is  leaving  us  " 

155 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


(December,  1920)  illustrates  a  meeting  between  the 
French  Ambassador  and  the  (Labour)  Secretary  for 
Foreign  Affairs  (holding  his  first  weekly  reception). 

"  Glad  to  see  you,  Moossoo  !  You'll  find  I'm  pretty 
well  up  in  all  the  main  points  already.  Capital  o' 
France  :  Paris,  pronounced  Paree.  Republican  form 
o'  Government,  founded  1792.  Principal  exports  : 
wines,  silks  and  woollen  goods.  Battle  o'  Waterloo, 
1814.    The  Great  War,  1914  to  1918.    Take  a  chair." 

That  is  obviously  a  just  criticism.  In  making  the 
Foreign  Secretary  refer  to  Waterloo  (he  would  not,  by 
the  way,  give  the  wrong  date — trust  the  State  School 
for  that)  Max  illustrates  exactly  the  form  of  tactless- 
ness to  be  expected  of  men  whose  first  dealings  with 
foreigners  will  be  guided  by  good  intentions  rather 
than  by  experience,  and — shall  I  not  add  ? — "  here- 
ditary savoir  faire'' 

Another  "  Labour  "  cartoon  which  has  annoyed  not 
only  people  with  political  "  Labour  "  proclivities  is 
called  "  The  Patron — a  draxmng  dedicated  {with  all 
'possible  sympathy  and  good-will^  heaven  knows !)  to 
those  of  our  young  poets  who,  not  knowing  very  much — 
why  SHOULD  they  know  very  much  ? — about  politics  and 
the  deplorable  part  which  human  nature  plays  in  politicsy 
imagine  that  under  the  domination  of  Labour  the  liberal 
arts  might  have  quite  a  decent  chance.'^  Here  a  poet 
stands  before  the  Minister  of  Education,  who  exclaims  : 
"  Wot !  You'll  dedicate  your  mon-you-mental  trans- 
lation of  Pett  Rark's  sonnits  to  me  if  I'll  get  you  out- 
door relief  for  six  months  ?  Oh,  really  ?  And  you 
say  you're  one  o'  the  Workers  yourself  ?    Worker  ? 

156 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 

Blackmailer — that's  what  you  are  !  .  .  .  Ow/side  !  " 
[Exit  Poet,  inwardly  composing  (mutatis  mutandis) 
some  such  letter  as  was  written  by  Samuel  Johnson  to 
the  fourth  Earl  of  Chesteraeld.] 

Mr.  Charles  Marriott,  writing  in  The  Outlook  about  this 
drawing,  to  take  one  instance,  said  :  "  Is  it  Labour  or  is 
it  Art  that  Max  is  wrong  about  ?  To  put  it  bluntly,  why 
should  we  assume  that  art  and  letters  will  fare  worse 
under  the  plumber  than  under  the  grocer  ?  It  is  quite 
likely  that  some  of  us  who  write  and  paint  would  fail  to 
move  the  plumber ;  but,  as  man  to  man,  do  art  and  letters 
end  with  us  ?  Since  it  appears  incredible  that  Max 
can  be  wrong  about  art  and  letters,  I  can  only  conclude 
that,  with  diabolical  subtlety,  he  has  drawn  not  his  own 
idea  of  Labour,  but  the  idea  of  the  plumber  as  held  by 
the  grocer." 

Before  discussing  that  point,  which  has  a  very 
important  bearing  upon  Max  Beerbohm's  work  as  a 
whole  and  which  must  therefore  be  left  till  the  end, 
let  us  consider  a  drawing  called  "  Blame  the  Cloth. 
A  Captain  of  Industry  declaring  that  the  desire  of  the 
manual  workers  to  be  paid  exorbitant  wages  for  doing 
the  least  possible  amount  of  work  is  a  sure  sign  that 
they  have  lost  their  faith  in  a  future  life." 

Like  so  much  of  Max's  satire  there  is  much  more 
than  a  grain  of  truth  in  that  reflection.  I  have  per- 
sonally heard  several  people,  though  not  captains  of 
industry,  express  the  same  idea.  Whatever  one's  own 
political  sympathies  (if  any)  may  be  a  gross  brute  in  a 
black  coat  and  a  linen  collar  looks  much  nastier  than  a 
gross  brute  in  corduroys  and  cap  o'  liberty :  and 

157 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


nothing  could  be  more  repulsive  than  Max's  Captain  of 
Industry.  But  the  critics  of  his  "  Labour  "  cartoons 
neglect  that  one  when  they  want  to  find  his  weight  on 
the  other  side  of  the  balance,  and  leap  for  joy  because 
in  "  .  .  .  Giving  Place  to  the  New,"  he  has  satirised 
Lord  Lansdowne,  who  says  (to  Mr.  Gordon  Selfidge)  • 
"  Statuary,  Sir  ?  Majolica,  paintings  in  oil,  all  the 
latest  Eighteenth  Century  books — this  way."  This 
really  pleased  the  critics  of  professed  "  Labour " 
sympathies,  who  seemed  to  recognise  in  it  the  old 
argument,  honoured  only  by  time,  that  it  is  the  here- 
ditary landlord  who  grinds  the  faces  of  the  poor.  The 
"  poor,"  by  this  time,  let  us  hope,  know  rather  better. 

Anyhow,  as  will  be  gathered  from  the  description  of 
these  drawings  Max  has  satirised  the  social  outlook 
from  all  three  points — Aristocracy,  Labour,  and 
Business.  So,  though  it  doesn't  much  matter,  none  of 
them  need  complain.  And  Max  himself  is  perfectly 
right,  because  he  recognises  that  all  stories  have  two 
sides  to  them,  and  no  truth  is  absolute. 

And,  last  of  all,  we  come  to  the  three  drawings  which 
correspond  to  that  hint  of  wistfulness  discoverable  in 
And  Even  Now, 

"The  Future,  as  beheld  by  the  (personified) 
Eighteenth  Century  "  is  merely  a  replica  of  his  elegant 
self.  "  The  Future,  as  beheld  by  the  Nineteenth 
Century  "  is  a  somewhat  more  prosperous  edition  of  his 
comfortable  self.  But  "  The  Future,  as  beheld  by 
the  Twentieth  Century,"  who  has  lost  an  arm  and  is 
pallid  and  worn  is  the  vague  wraith  of  a  question 
mark. 

158 


THE  CARICATURES  OF  MAX 


This  series  is  very  beautifully  drawn  and  from  that 
standpoint  is  entirely  meritorious— but  that,  of  course, 
being  what  we  are,  is  not  the  standpoint  from  which, 
first  as  well  as  last,  we  regard  it. 

"  He  can't  draw  "  is  one  of  the  stupider  forms  of 
criticism  that  used  to  be  and  still  is,  here  and  there  in 
remote  corners,  made  about  Max.*  I  don't  know  if  any 
one  ever  asked  him  to  draw,  but  it  hasn't  needed 
Mr.  Roger  Fry  and  the  "  modern  "  school  of  art  critics 
to  tell  us  that  the  observation  is  purely  irrelevant. 
There  is  a  type  of  mind  utterly  unable  to  grasp  the 
notion  that  though  a  drawing  may  be  quite  anato- 
mically wrong,  and  not  in  the  least  "  like  a  man  "  it 
may  yet  be  well  worth  doing — and  admiring — because 
it  is  so  like,  or  so  vigorous  a  comment  upon — say — 
Lord  Palmer ston.  You  try  and  explain  the  thing  to 
the  people  I  am  thinking  of,  and  they  say  :  "  Ah — 
a  grotesque — a  caricature !  "  and  dismiss  it  with 
scorn.  It  does  not  come  within  the  schoolmaster's 
definition  of  "  drawing,"  and,  therefore,  it  is  rubbish, 
nonsense,  child's  play.  That  strictly  "  correct  "  work 
may  be  utterly  lifeless  troubles  such  folk  not  at  all, 
nor  are  they  in  the  least  interested  to  know  that  free- 
dom and  beauty  of  line  redeems  much  inaccuracy  in 
representation  and  that  even  the  symbols  and  conven- 
tions by  which  a  caricaturist  dodges  his  own  limitations 
are  often,  besides  being  clever  and  amusing,  indicative 
of  greater  resource,  and  higher  artistic  sensibility  than 
that  required  to  make  all  feet,  hands,  eyes,  ears, 

*  Or,  as  an  old  lady  recently  said  :  "  Mr.  McBeerbohm's  pictures 
are  so  unnatural.'''' 


169 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


shadows  and  perspective  realistic.  People  without  the 
smallest  feeling  for  symmetry  or  form  or  beauty  of  any 
kind,  provided  they  have  muscular  control  of  a  pencil, 
can,  given  eyesight  and  perseverance,  be  "  taught  per- 
spective "  and  the  rest  of  it,  but  they  will  call  forth 
no  answering  appreciation  such  as  is  given  to  the  good 
caricaturist  who  "  can't  draw." 

This,  by  the  way,  is  no  plea  for  anarchy,  but  rather 
an  invitation  to  schoolmasters  and  some  others  to 
exercise  a  sense  of  proportion  and  to  allow  themselves 
to  discriminate  between  dead  and  empty  forms  and 
vital,  if  apocryphal,  images. 

Whether  we  are  to  be  glad  or  sorry  that  to  a  much 
greater  extent  now  than  formerly  Max  can  draw,  we 
cannot  say  until  we  know  whither  that  technical 
power  is  going  to  lead  him.  Personally,  I  do  not 
believe  that  Max  can  go  on  for  very  long  without 
surprising  us.  He  is  pretty  sure  to  have  something 
up  his  tight  sleeve.  He  will,  in  some  totally  unex- 
pected manner,  turn  his  technical  progress  to  good 
account. 


160 


A  POSTSCRIPT 


M 


A  POSTSCRIPT 


We  have  now  come  to  the  extreme  foreground,  with 
the  Writings  of  Mr.  Beerbohm  upon  the  left  hand, 
and  the  Caricatures  of  Max  upon  the  right.  And  we 
look  down  the  vista  between  to  that  vanishing  point 
behind  the  beginning,  and  bring  our  eyes  back  again, 
to  and  fro,  to  find  out  if  we  can  see  the  whole  picture 
at  once — Max  Beerbohm  in  perspective. 

To  return  to  the  apple-tree  analogy  we  have  dis- 
covered that  so  far  as  the  Writings  are  concerned  the 
trees,  which  began,  as  they  will,  by  putting  forth 
blossom  only,  now — here  in  the  foreground — are  seen 
to  bear  both  fruit  and  blossom  together,  at  the  same 
time.  So  much  for  the  left-hand  side.  On  the  right, 
our  eyes  first  take  in  the  foreground  and  then  hurry 
away  down  the  avenue,  not  in  disappointment  but 
because  the  foreground  on  the  right  seems  just  a  little 
vague.  It  is  not  quite  finished  yet.  The  tree  upon 
the  left  is  quite  definite  and  clear.  There  will  be 
other  trees  like  it,  worse  or  better  as  the  case  may  be, 
but  we  can  at  least  be  fairly  sure  that  they  will  go  on 
bearing  blossom  and  fruit  together.  On  the  right,  far 
away  down  the  avenue  the  trees  were  already  bearing 
fruit,  with  and  without  blossom.  As  we  come  towards 
the  foreground — is  it  possible  that  it  was  just  a  "  bad 

163  M  2 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


year  "  ? — we  see  more  blossom  than  fruit :  and  the 
fruit  that  we  do  see  strikes  us  as  belonging  rather  to 
that  variety  which  is  proper  to  the  left  side.  Is  that 
it  ?  Oh,  but  we  remember  that  there  is  no  variety 
in  question.  It  is  the  same  sort  of  apple,  only  planted 
in  a  different  position. 

Still,  we  cannot  yet  make  up  our  minds  about  the 
caricatures.  As  I  have  said.  Max  almost  certainly 
has  something  up  his  sleeve  :  and  the  kind  of  work 
that  he  is  doing  now  is  greatly  to  be  enjoyed  for  appro- 
priate reasons.  But — the  bulk  of  it  is  not  caricature. 
The  slight  tinge  of  seriousness  which  is  so  gracious  in 
one  medium,  and  which  will  so  please  the  people  who 
complained  of  Max  Beerbohm's  early  lack  of  it  no 
doubt  pleases  them  also  in  regard  to  his  drawings, 
but  there  at  present  it  tends  to  obliterate  his  most 
signal  virtue.  What  he  is  doing  is  done  by  him  better 
than  by  any  one  else.  But  pure  caricature,  as  Max 
can  do  it,  is  by  any  one  else  utterly  unapproachable. 
Of  another  caricaturist  who  could  have  drawn  "  The 
King  of  Spain,"  or  the  "  Mr.  Charles  Conder  "  in  this 
book,  I  would  say  as  Max  Beerbohm  would  say  the 
critics  would  say  Betsy  Prig  would  say — "  There  ain't 
no  sich  a  person." 

Max  is  Somebody  or  Nobody  merely  as  you  regard 
Art.  He  stands  or  falls  by  that.  There  are  still 
people  who  talk  of  all  art  as  a  "  lot  of  nonsense." 
Indeed,  I  once  heard  an  extremely  successful  man  of 
Business  say,  quite  seriously,  after  carefully  weighing 
certain  pro's  and  con's,  to  a  well-known  writer, 
whose  success  was  one  purely  of  esteem :  *'  Frankly, 

164 


Max  Beerbohm. 
A  Caricature  by  Bohun  Lynch. 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


old  man,  I  consider  what  you're  doing  is  sheer  waste 
of  time." 

So  it  was,  from  the  Business  point  of  view,  because 
there  was  "no  money  in  it."  And  Time,  as  we  know, 
is  Money.  Art  is  despised  by  these  good  and  worthy 
people,  some  of  whom  yet  patronize  Art  because  it  is 
the  correct  thing  to  do.  But  if  Art  is  in  any  way  to 
be  desired,  then  Max  Beerbohm  is  justified  whether  as 
a  satirist  in  general,  or,  particularly,  an  essayist,  a  teller 
of  stories,  and  a  caricaturist.  His  work  is  for  civilized 
people  who  appreciate  fine  shades  of  meaning,  who  are 
trained  to  recognise  a  light  touch.  His  art  is,  there- 
fore, very  "  undemocratic."  And  why  should  it  be 
otherwise  ?  Must  all  art  be  for  everybody,  of  what- 
ever order  of  intelligence  ?  Are  we  to  have  a  maxi- 
mum standard  of  wisdom  to  complement  the  minimum 
wage  ?  It  seems  somehow  unreasonable.  Further,  it 
is  impossible. 

All  art  is  useless  and  Max  is  "  useless."  He  is  a 
child  of  civilization.  You  may  bite  your  thumb  at 
civilization,  and  all  the  possessions  it  has  given  to  you — 
the  Jacobean  chairs,  the  Battersea  enamel,  the  old 
silver,  the  pictures,  the  sculpture,  the  books,  the  music 
that  makes  you  glad,  and  the  wine  that  prepares  you 
for  the  music.  All  these  are  the  fruits  of  civilization, 
"  extras  "  really.  You  may  say  (I  often  do)  that  the 
happy  man  is  he  whose  possessions  will  all  go  into  his 
breeches'  pockets,  who  can  stand  before  the  world  as 
he  will,  in  due  course,  stand  before  his  God,  without 
useless  "  lumber,"  and  all  that  "  lumber  "  comprehends. 
But  that  is  only  making  a  virtue  of  what  you  fear  may 

166 


A  POSTSCRIPT 


one  day  be  a  necessity — the  least  durable  material  for 
virtue.  Admitted  that  you  would  be  happy  as  a 
strolling  player,  an  itinerant  photographer,  or  a  casual 
labourer,  you — being  what  you  are — would  still  want 
private  possessions  ;  and  if  you  now  sold  all  your  goods, 
if  you  made  up  your  mind  to  do  without  accessories, 
to  be  content  with  promenade  concerts  and  with 
pictures  in  the  public  galleries,  you  would  still  find  the 
public  libraries  most  unsatisfying  for  your  reading. 
(For  one  thing  they  won't  let  you  smoke  there.)  You 
would  still  need  to  possess  books,  and  if  you  set  out  on 
a  journey  across  the  world  you  would  find  that  you 
would  soon  be  encumbered  once  more  by  a  good  many 
books. 

Max  Beerbohm's  gifts  are  small  and  only  to  be 
enjoyed  fully  by  a  small  proportion  of  the  "  reading 
public."  You  say  that  true  civilization  would  give 
him  a  large  reading  public."  I  reply  that  you  are 
probably  right.  Only  we  have  not  got  a  true 
civilization. 

Again  to  return  to  our  earnest-minded  friends, 
spiritual  descendants  of  the  Puritans— for  them  Max 
may  be  used  as  a  test  case.  He  is  the  personification 
of  the  civilized  world  as  we  know  it.  He  writes  for 
people  who  have  read  books  and  have  seen  pictures,  not 
as  a  duty,  not  on  a  deliberate  educational  plan  (which 
is  not  the  way  to  read  books  or  to  see  pictures),  but 
out  of  pure  curiosity,  really  educated  people,  in  fact, 
and  (I  abhor  the  word,  but)  cultured  people.  In  a 
rough,  uncultivated  world  such  as  we  should  see  were 
our  civilization  to  go,  where  the  fight  was  only  to  the 

167 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


strongest  and  the  least  scrupulous  of  their  strength, 
and  men  were  more  urgently  concerned  even  than 
they  are  for  bread,  there  would  be  no  use  for  Max 
Beerbohm.  And  so  long  as  there  is  a  major  population 
of  Mr.  Charles  Marriott's  Plumbers,  whose  chief  business 
in  life  is  still  the  getting  of  bread,  the  majority  will  not 
require  the  works  of  Mr.  Beerbohm.  He  is  a  luxury, 
an  extra.  All  art  is  that.  And  we  mean  by  civiliza- 
tion that  condition  of  life  which  enables  us  to  think 
of  other  things  than  getting  bread,  and  to  enjoy  things 
without  material  use.  We  do  not  mean  riches — 
heaven  forbid  !— but  a  little  quiet  leisure  now  and 
again.  Of  course,  if  civilization  follows  the  ideal  direc- 
tion we  shall  one  day  have  a  population  of  plumbers 
all  of  whom,  not  merely  have  time  and  energy  to 
give  to  extras,  but  who  will,  so  to  speak,  have 
learned  the  art  of  discrimination  in  respect  of  extras  ; 
who  might  prefer,  for  instance,  the  essays  of  Max 
Beerbohm  to  The  Pictures.  But  would  Max  Beerbohm 
flourish  in  such  a  civilization  ?  Were  he  to  be  sur- 
rounded by  a  world  of  plumbers,  all  clamouring  in  their 
thousands  for  his  latest  book,  would  his  works  thrive  ? 
I  think  not.  In  order  to  be  a  real  idolater  of  Max 
Beerbohm  you  must,  I  fancy,  be  lacking  in  a  sense  of 
proportion.  You  must  care  very  greatly  for  the  little 
things  that  only  civilization  as  we  know  it  can  give  us. 
"  How  pleasant,"  he  writes  in  And  Even  Now,  "if  we 
had  lived  our  lives  in  the  nineteenth  century  and  no 
other,  with  the  ground  all  firm  under  our  feet !  " 

So  you  see  a  man  who  is  accustomed  to  the  Old 
Order  and  who  does  not  want  to  suffer  for  those  guilty 

168 


A  POSTSCRIjPT 


of  making  the  Old  Order  impossible.  The  guilty  people 
are  the  takers,  the  materialists,  who — in  the  name  of 
God— despise  all  extras,  all  unproductive  effort,  all 
sacrifice,  all  giving.  They  are  Mr.  Marriott's  Grocers. 
So  we  come  rather  dangerously  near  to  the  discovery 
that  the  interest  in  Max  Beerbohm's  work  is  ephemeral, 
depending  on  the  superimposition  of  one  class  over 
another  ?  But  it  is  not  ephemeral,  because  it  deals 
with  character,  which  is  quite  a  stable  ingredient  in 
the  composition  of  man,  and  will  continue  to  be 
infinitely  variable  so  long  as  mankind  exists. 

Of  course,  if  our  civilization  goes,  that  is  all  about  it. 
There  will  be  nothing  for  Max  Beerbohm  to  do,  because 
he  will  have  no  audience  ;  nobody,  that  is,  with  time 
to  spare  from  getting  bread.  There  will  go  abegging, 
indeed,  every  one  whose  brains  cannot  be  dragooned 
for  practical  and,  for  the  most  part,  selfish  ends. 
People  who  "  give  "  will  not  be  required.  Nobody 
will  be  required.  The  world  will  be  in  the  hands  of 
those  who  force  it  to  accept  them— a  delectable 
prospect. 

In  the  meantime  civilization,  for  the  moment,  goes 
on  ;  and  we  have  to  decide  whether  the  Plumber  or 
the  Grocer  will  be  the  best  for  Art.  The  point  is  that 
we  do  at  least  know  where  we  are  with  the  grocer  : 
we  know  what  he  is  capable  of  from  his  damnedest 
upwards.  About  the  plumber  we  have  misgivings. 
In  order  to  decide  which  novelists  might  go  on  writing 
and  which  become  clerks  in  chemical  manure  factories, 
the  plumber  might  feel  disposed  to  ballot.  There  is 
no  end  to  the  things  he  might  do  and  about  which  we 

169 


MAX  BEERBOHM  IN  PERSPECTIVE 


cannot  guess.  Whereas,  the  grocer  feels  that,  so  far 
as  art  goes,  he  must  subscribe  the  opinions  of  his  betters 
— at  all  events  in  public  :  hence  a  steady  improvement 
as  time  goes  by  in  the  posters  which  advertise  his 
goods. 

We  do  not  know  if  grocery  will  persist.  Perhaps, 
as  Mr.  Chesterton  said,  "  his  time,  just  like  his  weight, 
is  short."  But  which  ever  side  rules  (since  the  Old 
Order  seems  to  have  gone  beyond  recall) — Labour,  or 
Business  and  Trade — let  it  be  that  which  is  most  ready 
to  make  sacrifices  and  to  see  the  point  of  sacrifices,  of 
extras,  of  "  useless  "  ornament.  That  side  will  be 
best  for  Art.  But  we  do  not  yet  know  which  side  is 
most  inclined  that  way,  and  none  of  us  living  now 
need,  in  our  lifetime,  expect  to  know. 

''A  'sex  war,'  we  are  often  told,"  Max  Beerbohm 
tells  us  again  in  And  Even  Noiv,  "is  to  be  one  of  the 
features  of  the  world's  future.  ...  It  seems  likely 
enough.  One  can  believe  anything  of  the  world's 
future."  That  is  desperate  :  that  is  not  making  the 
best  of  things  :  it  is  depressing.  Still,  even  those  the 
greater  portion  of  whose  lives  have  been  spent  in  the 
twentieth  and  not  in  the  security  of  the  nineteenth 
century  have  tasted  a  little  of  the  better  kind  of  civi- 
lization and  have  read  certain  books  and  seen  certain 
drawings  ;  and  that  is  something. 

And  when  we  pause  and  wonder  what  sort  of  man 
it  is  that  these  books  and  drawings  reveal,  as  we  do 
when  books  and  drawings  have  given  us  very  great 
pleasure  indeed,  we  find — a  profound  dandy,  who  ob- 
viously loves  comfort,  a  settled  and  ordered  and  unad- 

170 


A  POSTSCRIPT 

venturous  life,  very  pleased  with  small  and  simple 
pleasures,  but  very  curious,  eager  to  see  how  some 
wheels  go  round,  but  not  all  wheels  :  probably  with 
little  ambition,  in  no  wise  greedy,  a  mischievous  child, 
fond  of  animals,  fond  of  the  oddest  kind  of  people  (and 
rather  proud  of  that  fondness) — a  child  again,  a  wise 
child — wise  enough  to  live  in  a  place  where  civilization 
is  the  servant  of  man  and  not  his  task-master,  a  place 
where  peace  reigns  with  beauty,  where  he  lives  in  just 
that  retirement  that  he  predicted  for  himself  five  and 
twenty  years  ago.  And  there,  in  a  country  where  little 
"  English "  flowers  mock  the  English  tourist  from 
beneath  trees  richly  loaded  with  green  and  yellow 
lemons,  he  is  girt  about  with  leisure  and  tranquillity. 

One  includes  amongst  artists  those  who,  apart  from 
other  accomplishments,  understand  and  practise  the  Art 
of  Life,  and  ^'  it  is  as  an  artist,"  Max  Beerbohm  wrote 
of  Brummcll  once,  "  and  for  his  supremacy  in  the  art 
of  costume  .  .  .  and  for  that  superb  taste  and  subtle 
simplicity  of  mode  .  .  .  that  I  do  most  deeply  revere 
him." 

May  the  present  writer,  diffidently  inclined  to  tamper 
with  another  man's  work,  eliminate  the  quotation 
marks,  and  suppress  the  Brummcll  ? 


171 


LIMITED  EDITIONS 

A     PROSE  FANCY: 
TOGETHER  WITH 


CONFESSIO  AMANTIS       ^  (g- 
A   SONNET    :  BY 


Mr.  Richard  Le  Gallienne. 
A  Caricature  by  Max  (1893). 


The  Minor  Poet  and  His  Muse. 
A  Drawing  by  Max  (1893). 


V? 


Mb.  Richard  Le  Gallienne. 
A  Caricature  by  Max  (1893). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The  Works  (1896). 
Dandies  and  Dandies. 
A  Good  Prince. 
1880. 

King  George  the  Fourth. 


The  Pervasion  of  Rouge. 
Poor  Romeo  ! 
Diminuendo. 


More  (1899). 

Some  Words  on  Royalty. 

'  Punch.' 

Actors. 

Madame  Tussaud's. 

Groups  of  Myrmidons. 

Pretending. 

An  Infamous  Brigade. 

The  Seaside  in  Winter. 

If  I  were  Aedile. 

Sign-boards. 


Ouida. 

The  Blight  on  the  Music  Halls. 
Prangley  Valley. 

Arise,  Sir  ! 

Fashion  and  Her  Bicj'cle. 
Going  Back  to  School. 
'A.  B.' 

A  Cloud  of  Pinafores. 

At  Covent  Garden. 

The  Case  of  Prometheus. 


Yet  Again  (1909). 
The  Fire. 
Seeing  People  off. 
A  Memory  of  a  Midnight 

Express. 
Porro  Unura. 
A  Club  in  Ruins. 
'273.' 

A  Study  in  Dejection. 
A  Pathetic  Imposture. 
The  Decline  of  the  Graces. 
Whistler's  Writing. 
Ichabod. 

General  Elections. 
A  Parallel. 

A  Morris  for  May-day. 
The  House  of  Commons 
Manner. 


The  Naming  of  Streets. 

On  Shakespeare's  Birthday. 

A  Home-coming. 

'  The  Ragged  Regiment.' 

The  Humour  of  the  Public. 

Dulcedo  Judiciorum. 

'  Harlequin.' 

'  The  Garden  of  Love.' 

'  Ariane  et  Dionyse.' 

'  Peter  the  Dominican.' 

'  L'Oiseau  Bleu.' 

'  Macbeth  and  the  Witches.' 

'  Carlotta  Grisi.' 

'  Ho-Tei.' 

'  The  Visit.' 


177 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


And  Even  Now  (1920). 
A  Relic. 

'  How  Shall  I  Word  It  ?  ' 

Mobled  King. 

Kolniyatsch. 

No.  2.  The  Pines. 

A    Letter    that    was  Not 

Written. 
Books  within  Books. 
The  Golden  Drugget. 
Hosts  and  Guests. 
A  Point  to  be  Remembered. 

The  Happy  Hypocrite  (1897). 

ZULEIKA  DOBSON  (1911). 

Seven  Men  (1919). 

1.  Enoch  Soames. 

2.  Hilary  Maltby  and  Stephen 

Braxton. 

A  Christmas  Garland  (1912). 
The    Mote    in    the  Middle 

Distance.  H*nry  J*m*s. 
P.O.,  X,  36.    R*d**rd  K*p- 

l*ng. 

Out  of  Harm's  Way.    A.  C. 

B*ns*n. 
Perkins  and  Mankind.    H.  G. 

W*lls. 

Some  Damnable  Errors  about 
Christmas.  G.  K.  Ch*st*r- 
t*n. 

A  Sequelula  to  '  The  Dy- 
nasts.' Th*m*s  H*rdy. 

Shakespeare  and  Christmas. 
rr*nk  H*rr*s. 

Scruts.    Ar*ld  B*nn*tt. 


Servants. 

Going  Out  for  a  Walk. 
Quia  Imperfectum. 
Something  Defeasible. 
'  A  Clergyman.' 
The  Crime. 
In  Homes  Unblest. 
William  and  Mary. 
On  Speaking  French. 
Laughter. 


3.  James  Pethel. 

4.  A.  V.  Laider. 

5.  Savonarola  Brown. 


Endeavour.       J*hn  G*ls- 

w*rthy. 
Christmas.    G.  S.  Str**t. 
The  Feast.  J*s*ph  C*nr*d. 
A     Recollection.  Edm*nd 

Of  Christmas.    H*l**re  B*l- 
l*c. 

A    Straight    Talk.  G**rge 

B*rn*rd  Sh*w. 
Fond  Hearts  Askew.  M**r*ce 

H*wl*tt. 
Dickens.    G**rge  M**re. 
Euphemia    Clashtho  ught. 

G**rge  M*r*d*th. 


Caricatures  op  Twenty-five  Gentlemen  (1896). 


1.  Lord  Rosebery. 

2.  M.  Paderewski. 

3.  Henry  Labouchere. 

4.  A.  W.  Pinero. 

5.  H.R.H.    The  Prince 

Wales. 


of 


178 


6.  Richard  le  Gallienne. 

7.  A.  J.  Balfour. 

8.  Frank  Harris. 

9.  Lord  William  Nevill. 

10.  Rudyard  Kipling. 

11.  Sir  William  Harcourt. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


CABICATCmES  OF  TwENTY-FIVB 

12.  Aubrey  Beardsley. 

13.  Robert  Hichens. 

14.  Henry  Chaplin. 

15.  Henry  Harland. 

16.  George  Alexander. 

17.  The  Marquis  of  Queens- 

berry. 

18.  The  Warden  of  Merton. 

The  Poets'  Corner  (1904). 

1.  Omar  Khayyam. 

2.  Robert  Browning  taking 

tea  with  the  Browning 
Society. 

3.  Goethe. 

4.  Matthew  Arnold. 

5.  Henrik  Ibsen. 

6.  Lord  B3n:on. 

7.  Walt  Whitman. 

8.  Mr.  William  Watson. 

9.  William  Wordsworth. 
10.  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson. 

A  Book  op  Caricatures  (1907). 
Mr.  Sargent    at  Work. 
(Frontispiece.) 

1.  Lord  Al thorp. 

2.  Mr.    George   Moore  and 

Lord  Howard  de  Wal- 
den. 

3.  Mr.  Henry  Chaplin. 

4.  Mr.  W.  J.  Locke. 

5.  'Sem.' 

6.  Lord  de  Grey. 

7.  Mr.  Benjamin,  Mr.  Chaine, 

and  Mr.  Arthur  Cohen. 

8.  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells. 

9.  Lord  Grimthorpe. 

10.  Lord  Tweedmouth. 

11.  Mr.    Henry    James  (in 

London). 

12.  The  Marquis  de  Several. 

13.  M.  Coquelin. 

14.  Some  Members  of  the  New 

English  Art  Club. 


PLEMEN  (1896) — C(mt. 

19.  Joseph  Chamberlain. 

20.  G.  B.  Shaw. 

21.  George  I^ewis. 

22.  George  Moore. 

23.  The  Marquis  of  Granby. 

24.  Herbert  Beerbohm  Tree. 

25.  H.R.H.    The    Duke  of 

Cambridge. 


11.  Paul  Verlaine. 

12.  William  Shakespeare. 

13.  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge. 

14.  Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats. 

15.  Homer. 

16.  Robert  Bums. 

17.  Dante. 

18.  Mr.  Austin  Dobson  and 

Mr.  Edmund  Gosse. 

19.  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. 

20.  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling. 


15.  Sir  Hedworth  Williamson. 

16.  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw. 

17.  Lord  Northcliffe  and  Mr. 

Edmund  Gosse. 

18.  Mr.  Reginald  Turner. 

19.  Mr.  St.  John  Hankin. 

20.  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones. 

21.  Mr.  Claude  Lowther. 

22.  Lord  Lytton. 

23.  M.  Brasseur. 

24.  Mr.  Walter  Sickert. 

25.  Mr.  Evan  Charteris. 

26.  Mr.  John  Davidson. 

27.  Lord  Ribblesdale. 

28.  Mr.  Charles  Whibley  and 

Mr.  Augustine  Birrell. 

29.  Mr.  F.  E.  Smith. 

30.  Mr.  P.  Wilson  Steer. 

31.  Mr.  Clyde  Fitch. 

32.  Lord  Weardale. 

33.  Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie. 


179 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


A  Book  of  Caricatures  (1907) 

34.  Count  Benckendorff. 

35.  Sir  William  Eden. 

36.  Professor  Ray  Lankester. 

37.  Captain  Swinton. 

38.  M.  Jacques  Blanche  and 

M.  Maurice  Maeterlinck. 

39.  Sir  Herbert  Stephen. 

40.  Mr.    Hilaire   Belloc  and 

Mr.  Gilbert  Chesterton. 


Cont, 

41.  Mr.  William  Nicholson. 

42.  Mr.  Winston  Churchill. 

43.  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour. 

44.  Signor  Tosti. 

45.  Mr.  Charles  Boyd. 

46.  Mr.  R.  B.  Haldane. 

47.  Mr.  Haddon  Chambers. 

48.  Mr.   Henry    James  (in 

America). 


Cartoons  :  The  Second  Childhood  op 

1.  The  Ideal  John  Bull.  10. 

2.  The  Real  John  Bull. 

3.  Lest  We  Forget  Ourselves.  11. 

4.  An  Errand  of  Mercy.  12. 

5.  St.     George     and     the  13. 

Dragon.  14. 

6.  Colenso — Magersfontein — 

Spion  Kop.  15. 

7.  That  Krooger  Telegram. 

8.  To  Brother  Jonathan. 

9.  Ireland. 


John  Bull  (1911). 

The  Crusade  against  Ritu- 
alism. 

De  Arte  Theatrali. 

De  Arte  Pictoria. 

De  Arte  Poetica. 

Darby  and  Joan  at  Dover 
Castle. 

The  Twentieth  Century 
pressing  the  English 
Rose  between  the  Pages 
of  History. 


Fifty  Caricatures  (1913). 

1.  Amurath  and  Amurazzle. 

2.  Mr.  Asquith  in  Office. 

3.  Dawning    of    a  Horrid 

Doubt. 

4.  '  The    Rising    Hope  of 

the    Stem,  Unbending 
Tories.' 
6.  On  Circuit. 

6.  Mr.  Joseph  Pennell,  think- 

ing of  the  Old  'un. 

7.  Rentree   of   Mr.  George 

Moore. 

8.  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw. 

9.  Some    Ministers    of  the 

Crown. 

10.  Sir  Edward  Carson. 

11.  Signor  D'Annunzio. 

12.  Mr.  John  Masefield. 

13.  The  Torch. 

14.  M.  Rodin. 


15.  Lord    Londonderry  and 

Others. 

16.  Sir  Edgar  Speyer. 

17.  Sir  Edward  Grey. 

18.  Mr.  Charles  Brookfield. 

19.  A  Loathsome  Proposal. 

20.  Mr.  George  Grossmith. 

21.  Lord  Charles  Beresford. 

22.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  his 

Guardians. 

23.  Lord  Rosebery. 

24.  Cecils  in  Conclave. 

25.  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy. 

26.  Girth. 

27.  M.  Rostand. 

28.  Mr.  Reginald  McKenna. 

29.  Lord  Alexander  Th3nine. 

30.  Almost  like  Simony. 

31.  Lord  Chesterfield. 

32.  Cold-shouldered  Yet. 


180 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Fifty  Caricatures  (1913) — Cant. 

33.  Herr  Hauptmann. 

34.  Such  Good  '  Copy.' 

35.  Signor  Caruso. 

36.  Mr.  Balfour—A  Frieze. 

37.  A  Milestone. 

38.  Evenings     in  Printing 

House  Square. 

39.  Colonel  Seeley. 

40.  Members  of  the  Academic 

Committee. 

41.  Leaders  of  Cashmiote  So- 

ciety. 

42.  Annual  Banquet. 


43.  Mr.  Roger  Fry. 

44.  A  Study  in  Democratic 

Assimilation. 

45.  The  Twentieth  Century. 

46.  Dons  of  Magdalen. 

47.  Are  We  as  Welcome  as 

ever  ? 

48.  Duties  and  Diversions  of 

this  Sweeter,  Simpler 
Reign. 

49.  Mr.  Henry  Chaplin. 

50.  Lord  Lansdowne. 


181 


I 


INDEX 


Alexander,  the  late  Sir  George,  64 

All  Manner  of  Folk,  28 

And  Even  Now,  27,  40,  50,  61,  77, 

83—90,  154,  158,  168,  170 
"Ape,"  117,  122,  150 
Arnold,  Matthew,  127 
Ars  Cosmetica,  21 

Balfour,  A.  J.,  78,  120,  123,  138 
Bancroft,  Sir  Squire,  131 
Barrack  Room  Ballads,  57 
Beardsley,  Aubrey,  9,  15,  16,  22, 

62,  63,  121,  123 
Be  it  Cosiness,  9 
BeUini,  Giovanni,  52 
Belloc,  Hilaire,  58 
Bennett,  Arnold,  58,  139,  143 
Bergson,  M.  Henri,  105,  109 
"  Bodley  Booklets,  The,"  34 
Brookfield,  the  late  Charles,  139 
Brown,  Savonarola,  75 
Browning,  Robert,  127 
Brummell,  George,  31,  171 

Cambon,  M.,  155 
Caricature,  Definitions  of,  103 — 
114 

Caricatures,  A  Book  ojy  126,  131 

—135 
Carson,  Sir  E.,  137 
Case  of  Prometheus,  The,  44 
Chamberlain,  Joseph,  123,  127 
Charterhouse  School,  15,  106 
Chesterton,  G.  K.,  55,  170 
Christmas  Garland,  A,  63 — 59 
Clemenceau,  M.,  151 
Club  Types,  117 


Coleridge,  S.  T.,  45,  128 
Complete  Letter-Writer,  The,  85 
Conder,  Charles,  133,  155,  164 
Conrad,  Joseph,  144 
Craig,  E.  Gordon,  10 
Critics,  21 — 24  and  passim. 

Dandies  and  Dandies,  31,  33,  86 
D'Annunzio,  Signer  G.,  152 
Defence  of  Cosmetics,  A,  15,  21 
Dickens,  Charles,  58 
Diminuendo,  9 
Dobson,  Austin,  127 

H.M.  King  Edward  VII.,  48,  49, 

123,  142 
1880,  26,  32,  79 
Eighteen- N iyieties.  The,  10 
Elegy  on  any  Lady,  23 
Enoch  Soames,  34,  78 — 82 

Fifty  Caricatures,  136—141,  147, 
149 

Fond  Hearts  Askeiv,  56 
French,  on  Speaking,  84,  85 
Fry,  Roger,  108,  110—112,  140, 
159 

Galsworthy,  John,  56 
Gilbert,  Sir  W.  S.,  119 
H.M.  King  George  IV.,  32,  34, 

38,  120,  121 
George,  D.  Lloyd,  151 
Goethe,  86 

Going  Back  to  School,  40 
Golden  Drugget,  The,  91—93 
Gosse,  Edmund,  xi,  24,  97,  127, 
133,  146 


183 


INDEX 


Graham,  B.  B.  Cunninghamey  155 
Grain,  Comey,  119 
Grein,  J.  T.,  62 

Happy  Hypocrite,  The,  34,  77, 90 
Harland,  Henry,  15 
Harris,  Frank,  33 
Hewlett,  Maurice,  56 
Hichens,  Robert,  123 
Hilary  Malthy  and  Stephen  Brax- 
ton, 11,  89 
Hokusai,  52 
Hosts  and  Guests,  88,  90 
"  Ho-Tei,"  52 
How  Shall  I  Word  it  ?  85  ^ 
Humour  of  the  Public,  The,  13,  50 

Idler,  The,  62 

//  /  were  uEdile,  62 

In  Homes  Unhlest,  87 

Industry,  A  Captain  of,  157 

Infamous  Brigade,  An,  43,  45 

Isaacs,  Sir  R.,  138,  157 

Italian  Tour,  63,  64 

Jackson,  Holbrook,  10,  11,  28, 
29,  74 

James,  Henry,  xii,  1,  58,  59 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  48,  56,  57, 

123,  128 
Knowles,  R.  G.,  119 
Kolniyatsch,  40,  50 

Labour,  155—158 

Land  and  Water,  91 

Lane,  John,  15,  16,  125,  173,  174 

Lankester,  Sir  E.  Ray,  152 

Lansdowne,  Lord,  158 

Le  Gallienne,  Richard,  19,  53, 

119,  124,  125,  172—176 
Leighton,  Lord,  148 
Lewis,  Sir  George,  123 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  152 
London  Mercury,  The,  xiii,  9 
Lonsdale,  Lord,  119 
Maclaren,  Ian,  53 


Mail,  Daily,  63 

Marriott,  Charles,  157,  168,  169 
"  Mereboom,  Max,"  26 
Meredith,  George,  53 
Millais,  Sir  J.  E.,  146 
Moore,  George,  58,  128 
More,  11,  39,  40,  44,  46,  62,  83 
Morland,  George,  52 
Murder  Considered  as  one  of  the 
Fine  Arts,  72,  73 


New  English  Art  Club,  132,  140 
Niccola  of  Zoagli,  88 
Nicholson,  William,  114,  134 
'Nineties,  The,  4—11,  79,  81 
No.  2,  The  Pines,  95—99 


Ouida,  25,  86 

Oxford,  4,  5,  15,  39,  40,  43,  68— 
73,  115,  118 

P.C.  X.  36,  36,  56 
Paderewski,  M.,  119,  162 
Pageant,  The,  9,  36 
Palazzo  Borghese,  86 
Parade,  The,  36 
Pathetic  Imposture,  A,  49,  50 
Patmore,  Coventry,  148 
Payn,  James,  42 
Pellegrini,  Carlo.   See  "  Ape." 
Pervasion  of  Rouge,  The,  16 
*'  Peter  the  Dominican,"  52 
Pethel,  James,  75 
Phillips,  Sir  C,  152 
Pick-Me-Up,  119,  120 
Pigott,  Mostyn  T.,  22 
Pinero,  Sir  A.  W.,  120 
Poet's   Corner,  The,  126—130, 
131 

Poor  Romeo  !  34 
Prangley  Valley,  39 
Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood, 

The,  146 
Punch,  11,  21,  26,  32 


184 


INDEX 


Quia  Imperfectum,  86 
Quincey,  de,  45,  72 

Rapallo,  91 
Raven-Hill,  L.,  110 
Reeve,  Miss  Ada,  120 
Roberts,  Arthur,  122 
Roosevelt,  President,  107 
Rosebery,  Lord,  49,  50 
Rossetti,  Christina,  147 
Rossetti,  D.  G.,  97, 128, 146—149 
Rothenstein,  Professor  William, 
11,53,  132,  153,  1.54 

Saturday  Review,  9,  16,  18,  46, 

52,  53,  54,  60,  84,  85,  1 19 
Savoy,  The,  121,  122,  123 
Scruts,  58 

Seaman,  Sir  Owen,  121 

Second  ChildJiood  of  John  Bull, 

The  :  Cartoons,  126,  129,  131 
Second  Coming  of  Arthur,  22,  23 
"Sem,"  112,  131 
Servants,  31 
Seven  Men,  34,  74r— 82 
Shaw,  G.  B.,  ix,  38,  60 
Sickert,  Walter,  134,  140 
Sketch,  The,  42 
Soames,  Enoch,  34,  78—82 
Social  Success,  A,  64 — 66 
Some    Damnable    Errors  about 

Christmas,  55 
Several,  M.  de,  78,  132 
H.M.  the  King  of  Spain,  152, 164 
*'Spy,"  117,  150 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  2,  24,  33,  55 
Story  of  the  Small  Boy  and  the 

Barley  Sugar,  The,  36 
Strachey,  Lytton,  152 
Strand  Magazine,  The,  116,  118 
Swinburne,  95—99, 128, 131, 146, 

149 

Symons,  Arthur,  121 


Tennyson,  Alfred  Lord,  126,  127 
Tischbein,  86 
To-morrow,  62 

Tree,  Sir  Herbert  Beerbohm,  14, 
42,  121 

Turner,  Reginald,  131 

Tussaud's,  Madame,  34 

Twenty-five  Gentlemen,  Carica- 
tures of,  110,  122—124 

Vanity  Fair,  117,  127,  149,  150 
H.M.  Queen  Victoria,  127 
Vision  and  Design,  110 — 112 
"  Visit,  The;'  52 

H.R.H.  The  Prince  of  Wales,  140, 
153 

Ward,  Leslie.   See  "  Spy." 
Watts  Dunton,  Theodore,  96— 

99,  128 
Welch,  James,  131 
Wells,  H.  G.,  53,  134 
Whistler,  128 
Whistler's  Writing,  19 
Whitman,  Walt,  127 
Wilde,  Oscar,  119,  149 
William  and  Mary,  94 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  143,  151 
Words  for  Pictures,  52 
Works,  The,  9,  15,  19,  30,  40,  44, 

83,  90 
World,  The,  22 

Yai  and  the  Moon,  36 

Yeats,  W.  B.,  128 

Yellow  Book,  The,  15, 16, 19, 21— 

23,  31,  63,  120,  121 
Yet  Again,  13,  46—52,  67,  74,  83, 

131 

Zuleika  Dobson,  34,  47,  67—73 
74,  131 


185 


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